Everything Will Be Fine in the End

Director-writer Joe Bartone drags the audience forcibly through his unique vision of L.A. as hell in Everything Will Be Fine in the End. A young woman named George (Elsa Kennedy) and her aimless hang-out buddies Kai (Steven Michael Martin) and Renka (Cheska Zaide) are living at the edge of poverty and in perpetual crisis. All they seem to do is flit around seedier parts of the city on their skateboards.

George owes money to a skeevy older man named Buzz (Kent Harper), a drug-addled private investigator (or so he says) who drives a repurposed police car. He insists George have sex with him to pay off her debt, but unsatisfied with that being enough, he takes her dog Leo (whom she stole from someone else) away from her as well. This is life at the bottom. Everybody wants out, but no one knows how to break free or where they would go from here.

“…forced to confront their purposeless existence when they panic and murder a woman…”

Life for the four main characters caught in a cycle of pointless crimes and drugs continues to circle the drain. Soon enough, they are all forced to confront their purposeless existence when they panic and murder a woman (Holly Rockwell) after breaking into her home. The woman’s ghost follows them, looking on as they try to decide how to deal with what happened.

The primary story of Everything Will Be Fine in the End is decorated with tangential characters and their tales. These are colorful slices of life more than they are plot-driving devices. We meet a would-be drag queen named Mank (Jonathan Mankuta) and a blind street shaman (Turen Robinson) who serves as the Greek chorus leading player for this tragi-comedy. Randomly, he delivers wise observations about existence.