BRUTON: Early Deprivation & How Hunger Goes Awry
Courtesy of Justine Browning
Thinking you can get away with things never works. So, what’s behind the fantasy that you will? Well, the manic excitement about all the possibilities (to “cure” your painful feelings) might be such a big lure that you don’t even think about the consequences. That’s Bryan, in Vincent Grashaw’s new film, Bruton. But what are the real reasons his hunger goes awry? Not having enough (except for too much responsibility) can make you feel desperate and really bad. So sometimes you have to pump yourself up and raise yourself high to feel good. Really good. And sometimes you take risks to see if you can get away with it (and count that as a certain kind of success). The worst thing about fighting off painful feelings is getting led in dangerous directions. And, in Bruton, the results are horrifying. But Bryan’s story also shows that the courage to face yourself can turn your life around. That is, if temptation doesn’t lure you in again...
Hungry: Never Having Enough
Bryan Bruton (Theo Rossi) is hungry. Hungry to be admired and desired. Hungry for money. He has a lot of people relying on him. “Mom and Dad’s mortgage, I got it. Sisters want to go to cosmetology school, hey it’s on me. The dinner bills paid before anyone sits down. That’s just how I roll, so I do what I gotta do.” But Bryan needs things for himself too, right? Hunger is normal.
It’s a complicated thing to be hungry and poor. Deprived of things early in life. You might have to tell yourself you really don’t need anything from anybody; you can get it for yourself (even if it’s in those risky ways). You feel safer being self-sufficient. No one can disappoint you. But early deprivation doesn’t go away. You have to manage those feelings. Otherwise, not having enough can really get you down. And one way to rise above that “down” feeling is a sort of mania that makes Bryan feel on top of the world. Capable of anything. But he’s hungry too. You can try, but you can’t really have no needs. And his hunger ultimately leads Bryan down a treacherous path.
It's not that Bryan didn’t try to turn himself around. He’s a very, very smart guy. He was starting a legit business hauling concrete, even bought a truck. He was ready to stop dealing for good…
Chasing a High (Not to Feel Low)
When you’re young and scared and have the weight of providing for every single person in your family, you might worry you’re not good enough for the job. Sometimes it’s hard to find your confidence. So, chasing a high in whatever way you can is a major temptation. You’re proving yourself big time. And when you get away with something, you get a huge dose of endorphins.
But the high doesn’t really stick. You need more and more and more. It’s like a drug addiction. And sometimes the addiction catches you off-guard via a “fatal” mistake, like what happened to Bryan with Elana Porter (Dana Namerode). He sees a pretty girl. He gets hooked into a flirtation. A challenge. A need to be desired. That’s a high too. But. He missed it. He missed who she was. And when it dawned on him, Bryan was too much into his craving to stop it there. This time, he hit on a liar; another opportunist. And this time, Elana beat him at his own game...
Bryan has a wife, Sienna (Aya Cash), who loves him. He adores his daughter, Crystal (Kayden Brenna Tokarski). And he risks all of that - caught by an impulse, a misdirected need to be desired (and admired) to boost his self-esteem. Elana keeps calling him. He tells her to stop. She won’t. She’s out for something. Revenge? Power? Turns out, he stopped dealing drugs to the Porter family, and they are pissed. (And he jilted Elana, who wants to be desired more than Bryan does.)
So now he’s in a real trap. Elana lies, telling his wife that Bryan f*cked her and got her pregnant. And her brothers are after him. He has to stop it, so he takes his brother-in-law to squash the whole thing. He flirted. Now he’s being framed. He’s angry. So are the Porter brothers, who throw rocks at his truck. One of them tries to jump into the truck, and they shake him off. Come to find out, that brother is dead. It’s an accident, but “Holy Shit!” It’s bad. He knows it. Bryan goes home and takes a Polaroid of Crystal, just as the police show up, handcuff him, and take him away.
He's not catching any breaks; not in Florida. The Judge says it’s clear that what happened in this case was an accident. But the Judge is cruel. Punitive. Sadistic. He tells Bryan: “Because you didn’t come and tell us what happened, I’m going to give you 10 years to sit and think about it.” Bryan knows: “You don’t beat cases in Florida, and I wasn’t going to risk going to trial on a murder one charge out here. So, I took the manslaughter plea. I can’t believe I caught 10 for an accident …”
The Lure of Being Smart & Cunning
So, yes, a fatal attraction and unintentional accident led Bryan to Lake Butler Correctional Facility, a place no one wants to be: “How you get sent up here is beside the point. It’s what it does to you and what you make of it. I just looked at it like I did everything else in life ...” And that “everything else in life” is through his sharp, smart, and “always looking for an angle” eyes.
So, it's a big lure to bide his time being as resourceful as he can. Bryan’s a very enterprising man. And he’s quite talented at a lot of things. It’s just that he gets carried away. He starts ok, getting his “permanent status” by cutting hair of his own accord. Even the guards want haircuts. He gets friendly with other prisoners. One has hooked up a fully functional analog station. If they only had Internet, they could “do those message boards, and talk about music and shit and reach people.” The wheels start spinning in Bryan’s mind. He asks if he’s ever thought of monetizing.
And then there’s Maura Willis (Tammy Blanchard). Yes, the ladies like Bryan a lot (and a woman has already been his downfall). But he gets so excited by the possibilities that he forgets to heed a serious red flag. You see, Maura Willis is one of the corrections officers. But Maura is hungry too. She flirts with Bryan. Insists he take some biscuits. He gives in. He feels he can’t refuse her advances, or she could make his life a living hell. But he also sees a door that’s opening. Give her what she wants (sex and the illusion of being desired), and he can get things. Like money. Maybe even escape from this hell hole. To test her, he asks for lotion. She brings it. He slips her a note, “Thank you, beautiful.” Smitten, she starts cooking him rib eyes. They have sex. He’s got her.
Maura’s the pawn for his schemes. They start making alcohol. $80 a drink +46 inmates in D Block equals $3680 per month. There’s big potential with Maura, so he keeps f*cking her. They smuggle cell phones. $400 per phone X 18 new buyers per month. They get access to the Internet and set up a prisonkast radio. $1 per month +23,000 subscribers = $23,000 a month. It spreads like wildfire. Up to $51,000 a month and going strong. Canada. Japan. They go global. They’re making money, planning their investments, playing chess together. They’re having such a fantastic time it hardly looks like prison. And “this whole thing started with a bag of Hardee’s biscuits.”
Yes, it’s pure mania. They’re higher than high. Until the shit hits the fan. A different gang of inmates wants a cut. It’s a pretty big brawl. Jamal (Kelvin Hodge), who is a “regular Bobby Fischer, plans to go clean when he gets out and loves his daughter, is impaled through his neck. He doesn’t get a chance. But is it too late for Bryan? He starts to remember Crystal. And grief hits him hard.
Trying to Escape Vulnerability
Bryan needs to see Crystal and pleads with Sienna to bring her. But Sienna’s cold. The guards are mad. And he’s thrown into solitary confinement. He can’t be vulnerable. Not yet. Feelings aren’t allowed. In fact, they’re dangerous. Bryan’s always been tough. Nothing fazes him. It’s been all about survival since childhood. So, he’s pretty emotionally walled off and still up to his old ways. But he’s starting to feel something through his armor. Being in a Florida prison makes you vulnerable whether you want to be or not. And Maura Willis, to Bryan’s benefit (but not her own), isn’t tough. She’s defenseless. And so full of longing and need, she misses that Bryan is a user.
Things are getting increasingly desperate for Bryan. One of his prisoner friends tells him that the guards are clocking him, and if it’s “one of their own” (Maura), they’ll mess him up with loads of paperwork to keep him there for a long time. Bryan asks, “What did you tell them?” The friend says, “I don’t know, and I don’t wanna know, but get your shit right.” Duncan (Aaron Quick Nelson), another inmate, is pretty torn up about Jamal too. He “can’t do this anymore.” So, Bryan concocts a plan to escape by seducing Maura into leaving with the two of them for Guatemala.
Of course, she wants to be with him, even though she is afraid of going to prison. But he cinches the plan with a threat: “Either you go with us, or I go alone, or you turn me in, and you’re never gonna see me again.” That gets her. Maura’s in, laughing hysterically: “I’m gonna fu*king do it!!”
Yes. Maura wants love. Yes. She’s terrified and vomiting. But she can’t lose Bryan, even though she knows darn well, deep down inside, that she’s taking a terrible risk and that he does not love her. Yet she’s too full of need. (And everything that Bryan can’t let himself feel.) Of course, it’s a total disaster. Of course, everything goes wrong. And soon, they’re surrounded by police cars.
Bryan is thrown into solitary confinement for 4 years. He learns what it’s like to be in a real prison. The one he’s lived in, inside himself. With, as the judge threatened, a lot of timeto think ...
Alone. Terrified. Time to Think.
This is what it’s like to be trapped. To be totally alone with himself. There’s no escape. It’s brutal. It’s torture. If he was deprived earlier in life, he’s really deprived now. It’s dark. Food is shoved through a small window. “Chow down! Chow down.” He’s sick. Vomiting. Scared. He’s terrified.
Bryan doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s always used his mind to escape his pain. Now he exercises like crazy. He’s agitated. Yelling. He’s filled with all the feelings he couldn’t feel before. He’s shaking. He hallucinates a clown. He “sees” his daughter. Hears voices. “Bryan, wake up.” Yes, he does need to open his eyes and face himself. That’s true. He has to face his self-absorption. His inability to care about even the people he loves. But. There is a voice on the other side of the vent. It says, “I’m Jerry.” Jerry understands what it’s like to go crazy. He says to shoot him a line, and he’ll send a note back to Bryan. Jerry is like the guardian angel Bryan never knew he had. Maybe it’s the first time in his entire life he’s accepted any help. “Got it. All right. Pull...”
The note Bryan gets back says: “’Siddha Yoga Path. Incarcerated Seeker.’ Write them, and they’ll send you a new course every week. Get your mind right. Yours, Jerry.”
Yes, it’s time to do that.
The Pain (& Gain) of Facing Yourself
People are screaming all around him in maximum confinement. “Help me. Help me.” It’s time for Bryan to help himself. To face himself. “Religious material is the only thing you can receive in Max management, and Jerry was right. These Yogi fu*ks were on to something big, and I became completely enveloped in it. I mastered escaping within my own mind. I could smell the formaldehyde in the water at Disney World. Taste Waffle Town. I could visit the most beautiful tropical beaches, and I could hear the water crashing on the sand. I could be anywhere, anytime. It became my salvation and the only way to survive.” And he “saw many pictures” of Crystal.
Bryan remembers he’s capable of love. He imagines walking on the beach with Crystal, grown-up. “I’m so sorry to you and your mom. I always said you’re my everything. Everything that I’ve done is so selfish. You’re the greatest thing I’ve ever accomplished in life. The only thing that’s ever mattered. I’ve lost so much time, missed so many things with you. Someday, forgive me.” He cries. Bryan had to prove himself to everyone. Now? He needs to prove himself to himself.
It’s a tough road. He’s sent to all the worst prisons. But. Now. Bryan knows: “The whole thing didn’t start with Elana Porter’s lie or the judge throwing the book at me for shit and the accident. No, I’ve done a lot of shit that never caught up with me. But I never once asked those I was close to how they were dealing with the consequences of my bullshit. That’s not love.” He tracks down Crystal’s phone number from his sister. She’s never stopped loving him. But it’s not over yet. He’s paying in spades for thinking he can escape. Not only prison. But in the ways he avoided himself.
Bryan’s not getting visitation. He doesn’t give up. And neither does Crystal. She reaches a sympathetic administrator. Pleading, sobbing: “Do you have kids? Please, I haven’t seen my dad since I was 13. I’m 17 and about to graduate from high school. I just want to hug my dad again. Please. Please help me.” The woman breaks down crying. Hands the phone to the warden. He’s a man of faith. He has kids too. But Bryan Bruton isn’t getting off easy. The corrections officers punish him for what he did to Maura. And someone tries to kill him. Yet, Crystal does get to hug her dad. He serves his time out. 11 years in all. And finally. Bryan is free. By doing the right thing...
Temptation: Can Bruton ReallyBeat It?
Yes, temptation was the culprit. Bryan couldn’t say no. Now, he’s trying to go the straight and narrow. He calls Maura and apologizes. He tells her that he’s really sorry. She didn’t deserve any of what happened. She asks if he cared about her at all, and he answers, yes, he did. She says, “I know you’re probably incapable of loving anyone, but please tell me this. Were you gonna ditch me once we got over there?” Bryan admits, “Yeah. I was.” She hangs up the phone and laughs. “It could’ve been worse.” Maybe so. But it was pretty bad. And if it weren’t for temptation ...
Now Bryan has a chance to act on love and to let love lead. He sits on the beach watching Crystal play with his little granddaughter. A number pops up on his phone. It’s Big Duane calling from prison. He has “a pretty big deal going,” and he needs someone on the outside. Bryan looks at Crystal. At his granddaughter. Bruton has a chance to have a happy, normal life by doing the right thing. He starts to block Duane’s number. His finger hovers. He hesitates. His hunger is still there.
Temptation.
It’s always around. It’ll try to get you. But this time: Can Bruton really beat it?
A special thank you to Justine Browning for so generously sharing an advance screener of Bruton with me. I’m grateful for the opportunity to spend time with this psychologically rich and deeply affecting film before its release. Learn more about Justine and her work here: justine-browning.com