King of California (2007)

This performance driven film should be far more recognized than it is because of its originality, deep sentiment, and superb acting.

After living two years alone, a teenage girl picks up her father from a mental health hospital where he's spent the past two years. Life doesn't have a chance to normalize as the father is eager to begin the treasure hunt he's been planning for months. The two of them begin searching with maps, metal detectors, transits, and a backhoe in their California suburb.

The touching part of this film is how the characters display their need for the other and at the same time their need for space from each other. There is an unconditional love that surpasses a simple loyalty and that is more complex than jazz between the two. There is a supernatural, time surpassing element to the story too as we are transported back 350 years to the time of the Spanish conquistadors and into dreams and mental illness; even more so is the barren landscape of golf courses, McDonalds, Costcos and highways. They are living pilgrims in a land of death.

Truth: There is treasure to be sought and it is worth our very lives.

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