S Y N O P S I S

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TYLER is just trying to keep his life and his “recovery” simple with a hassle-free job at a used-book store when his younger brother Russell goes missing. RUSSELL is a hopeful underachiever who’s coasting along with the help of his older brother until he starts mixing with a rough crowd, slips in over his head and drops out of sight. In need of better resources, Tyler gets pulled back into the high-pressure advertising game when he's offered his old job back and he reluctantly takes the creative reins of an important account.

 

Tyler’s new boss, CATHERINE, is the new chief executive of a top advertising agency. Now in her early fifties, she has a sensuality younger woman envy and a brain that scares the pants off most men. Although she is very successful, and on the surface seems to have everything, hidden under her polished armor she is a very isolated and fear-driven woman.

 

As Tyler pieces together some clues keading to his brother, he discovers an emerging underground subculture where thrillseekers from all walks of life rub elbows as they experiment with a new compulsive habit involving a novel – and highly addictive – use of electricity: The Jolt. However, unknown to Tyler, his new boss is traveling the same dark roads and keeping the same company as his missing brother.

 

Catherine's much older husband, JULIUS, is an admired medical biotech pioneer who is deeply consumed by his work. The accumulated years have changed their relationship. Though they share a comfortable home, they now coexist in separate worlds: his is methodical and painstakingly cautious, hers is impulsive. Yet, Julius is still very much in love with his wife. When Julius discovers that Catherine has recklessly co-opted his research to satisfy her own impatient ego, he suffers such a profound betrayal it forces him to take actions he would have found unthinkable only 24 hours earlier.

 

Tyler’s unexpected ally, ETHAN, is an ambiguously gendered male-Identified ex-hippie activist, a person on the margins of society, though not crazy or living on the streets, Ethan moves to a tune only s/he can hear. Ethan tries to sound the alarm when s/he foresees the catastrophe The Jolt’s expanding popularity portends, but s/he lacks credibility even in Tyler's eyes.

 

EDDY SEVEN, the tough antagonist, is a streetwise entrepreneur trafficking in The Jolt. He's in it for both the money and the power trip. Physical and aggressive, he's not someone you'd want as an enemy or as a friend. He operates with a troupe of cocky young GOONS as his foot soldiers – some of whom Catherine relies on for sexual distraction in her relentless attempts to escape her loneliness.

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An emerging ACTIVIST GROUP – R.A.A.G.E. (Revolt Against Advertising And Global Exploitation) – complicates Tyler’s mission. The group’s in-your-face-artist-as-social-warrior tactics includes strategic media vandalism, guerilla street theater, and incorporates a groundbreaking reinvention of what a protest song can be. 

 

When Tyler discovers that Russell is in deep debt to Eddy Seven, he confronts The Jolt dealer only to find himself set up as a newly dedicated customer. An emotionally complex story unfolds as Tyler follows an uncertain trail deep into a dangerous puzzle that reaches from the shining glass-and-steel offices of Madison Avenue to the burned-out basements of the outer boroughs.

 

Driven by the competing forces of profound loneliness and terrifying desire, Tyler, Russell, and Catherine spiral down converging paths to the same desperate tipping point where each is irreversibly changed by the heartbreaking choices they’re forced make.

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Bubbling up through the emotionally complex story is an investigation of how the trifecta of advertising, technology and addiction co-creates never-satisfied feelings, while simultaneously – and paradoxically – offering an easy release from the fidgety restlessness it generates.