Mending the Line

John Colter is badly wounded in Afghanistan and sent to a veterans' hospital in Montana. All he wants is to recover and return to his unit; nobody can tell him it will not happen. At the hospital he meets an older man called Ike. Ike is a Vietnam veteran and spends his days fly fishing on the river. He agrees to teach Colter the craft, but on a condition: Colter will answer his questions. Brian Cox plays Ike and Sinqua Walls the young soldier. Wes Studi is also in the cast. Joshua Caldwell directed. The mould is the recovery story and the film does not hide it; the fishing here is a metaphor. The story shows post-traumatic stress not as an event but as an ongoing condition, and does not heal anybody in a single scene. A hundred and seventeen minutes. The rivers of Montana are the film's second character.