The Black List

Young Carlos Avila is so brilliant he's mathematically proven he'll never be happy.  And if all a big brain does is prove you can never be happy, what good is it?  Still, when the chance to head east to an Ivy League School comes, he should at least find satisfaction all his scholastic hard work has paid off, right?  Nope.  Carlos feels guilty.  He can see the eventuality, the outcome, of everyone else's life and where their decisions are leading them. They're doomed.

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Starting with his best friend Rhonda; a girl with enough energy to power a small city.  She’s not going to college, so every time we see her she’s dressed as something different (firefighter, roller derby queen, lounge singer) hoping for inspiration as to where her career lies.  Her problem is she’s terrible at everything.  He also has a rich, underachieving girlfriend who’s way out of his league and will probably forget him the second he's out of her driveway. Rounding out Carlos' life is Perry; an innocent man he’s trying to free from prison; an overly emotional cousin who might have a pregnant girlfriend; his grandmother, who refuses to push her medical alert bracelet no matter how many times she falls down and Carlos' mother; the ultimate helicopter-parent, who suddenly will be all alone.

Throughout, Carlos is plagued by uncertainty: “What if he’s not brilliant? What if he’s just neighborhood smart? Is he really afraid of abandoning everyone, or is he just scared of leaving his comfort zone?”

The film is a coming of age story about realizing you can’t get anywhere new if you stick to the same familiar roads, and sometimes your dreams are just out of sight, waiting for you, beyond the tall grass.