Rid of Me

Meris moves to Portland with her husband Mitch. Mitch has a closed circle of old high school friends, and Meris tries to get inside it. Whatever she does is taken as strange; the harder she tries the further outside she stays. When the group manages to bring Mitch and his first love back together, Meris has nothing left to hold on to. After her life falls apart she takes a job in a candy shop. There she meets Trudy and has a real friend for the first time. Trudy introduces her to thick black eyeliner and to the punk scene of the northwest. The film turns a comedy of embarrassment into black humour and does not make the woman ridiculous. Katie O’Grady and John Keyser take the leads, with Storm Large also in the cast. James Westby’s ninety minute American film was completed in 2011.