From Omeleto.
A woman pursues her dream.
Janie May has always dreamed of being a musician and performer. She submits a song to a contest to be the opening act of a prominent Texan musician, Harlan Thompson, and becomes one of the finalists. To continue, she is scheduled to perform live and on air at the radio station running the contest, where Harlan will judge each finalist’s song and performance and decide the winner.
That day, she does an early morning shift as a waitress and then rushes to get to the station, driving quickly as she can. But when she accidentally hits someone on the side of the road, she must decide between pursuing the opportunity to make her dreams come true and helping the man, whose tenuous status as a migrant throws even more of a wrench in Janie May’s plans.
Directed by Gregory J.M. Kasunich from a script co-written with Lauren Noll, this short drama begins much like a country song, in which broad, relatable emotion and sunny simplicity introduce us to a woman with a big voice and the big dreams that accompany it. Janie May has long aspired to a career in music, performing for cheering audiences and writing songs. When we meet her, she is close to making that dream come true, having entered a contest to open for a local musician who’s hit it big.
The storytelling has a warm, burnished naturalism that reflects the Texan setting, and it also mirrors Janie May as a down-to-earth character, a woman who loves to sing and has a rapport and vivacity with her co-workers. We zip through her earlier life and her love of music until we land at her present, as someone on the verge of a big professional opportunity. But on the way to the radio station, she accidentally hits a man on the side of the road — someone she knows through her restaurant job. Janie May is a good person who does everything she can to help Jesus, but he refuses to go to the hospital, insisting she take him to his boss, who will know what to do.
As Janie May, actor Lauren Noll endows her character with a native pluck and big-heartedness, but both these characteristics get stretched and challenged when she faces her dilemma. But when things get complicated, Janie May can only do so much, leaving her feeling helpless and shaken. She can’t help but take those feelings into the booth at the radio station, where she performs her song, realizing the lyrics have a darker, more ironic resonance, thanks to what she’s just witnessed and experienced. It ends THE HEART OF TEXAS on a more unsettling, disquieting note, as the gap between American dreams and harsh reality come to the fore for a songwriter who’s devoted her life to realizing hers. There’s the mythos, full of the idea that anyone with salt-of-the-earth fortitude can accomplish anything — and a much more complicated, thought-provoking realization on who that applies to.
THE HEART OF TEXAS. Courtesy of Gregory J.M. Kasunich at https://gregorykasunich.com.
