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A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
01
Why this pick
Like Ballast, it uses an unvarnished, observational realism to find tenderness and survival instincts within economic precarity, following fractured family bonds without forcing easy catharsis.
02
Why this pick
Its rural Southern landscapes, nonprofessional naturalism, and quiet attention to young people living with guilt and limited options closely echo Ballast’s mournful, humane texture.
03
Why this pick
A spare, compassionate portrait of isolation and financial instability, paced with the same patient restraint and respect for small gestures of care amid hardship.
04
Why this pick
Set against a similarly harsh, working-class landscape, it builds tension from desperate material circumstances while keeping its focus on a mother’s difficult, morally complicated choices.
05
Why this pick
It pairs vivid location-based realism with a child’s perspective on poverty and unstable caregiving, finding warmth and volatility in an improvised family ecosystem.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
The film opens with a local man driving to the home of Lawrence and Darius, twin brothers who operate a local store. Upon entering the home, the man discovers Darius dead in his bedroom with Lawrence sitting on the couch unable to speak. Lawrence then walks to a neighboring property and shoots himself in the chest, which he survives. In the hospital, it is revealed that Darius committed suicide. Depressed and unable to return to the store he owns, Lawrence spends his days at the property he shared with his brother. Meanwhile, James, Darius' estranged pubescent son, steals Lawrence's gun and holds him at gunpoint for money to buy crack. After a failing to repay debts to his drug dealer, James and his mother, Marlee, are targeted in a drive-by assault. Unable to return home, Marlee confronts Lawrence about Darius leaving her and James many years prior and moves into Darius' vacant apartment. After she is fired from her job as a cleaner, James convinces Lawrence to buy them food, which he does. Bound by these numerous tragedies, the trio form a de facto family, determined to move forward, starting with Marlee convincing Lawrence to let her run the store. The pair loosely decides to raise James together, beginning with a shared homeschooling schedule to keep James away from the negative influences that led him to drugs in the first place. The film ends when Lawrence discovers that ammunition is missing. He confronts James, fearing he has found himself another gun, only to find that James had thrown the bullets into a stream, to prevent Lawrence from attempting to harm himself again.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
John
