Newport Beach Film Festival 2008

I was privileged to see a small and intimate screening of the film Leaving Barstow, prior to it's debut at the Newport Beach Film Festival. This film will not disappoint and will speak to the heart of all of us. The cast is nothing short of excellent. The young man, played by Kevin Sheridan, shows the despair and desolation of choosing a bleak, desolate future. With an opportunity in his grasp he could choose to achieve something in life but at the risk of leaving his desperate middle aged mother searching for love and acceptance in a town even more desolate than her own soul. The mother's lover is a user/leech and the confrontation between the son and the young stud cowboy is soul wrenching from the perspective of a young man protecting the mother he loves. The teacher in the high school and friend of the young man is a voice of one having known the heartache of wrong choices in life and desperately trying to reverse his own choice; however, he too is snuffed out - as this town sucks the life out of its people. Fabulous. A story for anytime, in any town, in any heart of a survivor with conscience. T. Duggan