The Sweet

Philadelphia is both a gritty and beautiful backdrop for a story of redemption and the power of love in many forms. A young man’s perfect start in life is ruined by tragedies not of his own making. He had managed to graduate college in the sciences, but is strongly drawn to expression as a painter and artist. He’s brilliant at it. One of the best. He’s an up and coming rising star in the art world, but at the same time a downward spiraling consumer of all things illicit and wild. He is a troubled man, but also a very lucky guy to have people in his life who believe in him and love him back to some semblance of order, yet it seldom lasts. He is his own worst enemy. Lie upon lie to Juanita, his girlfriend of many years, and a frenetic, drug induced work style demands and extracts a high price. The end of his long-term relationship culminates with haunting dreams caused by the crash of his idyllic youth. Never mind the fact that he can’t stop getting high, or stop drinking. It’s all too much. The issues of his youth are winning. One night he decides to stop fighting. He’s saved by an admirer, who like a hundred other women in town, would like him to be hers, just without the other stuff. He finally does find security and a safe place, sort of, except it’s a place where people go after they freak out. It’s another world. His roommate, Dink, needs to be a permanent resident, but instead is on extended loan from the state prison. If Andre’s twist in life can be understood as circumstances beyond his control, then Dink’s life can be understood as no control and a twisted life in all circumstances. He’s outward, a history of violence, and to be looked out for and monitored constantly - medicated or not. Andre can’t get away from him, so he handles him with serious care. A nurturing care. Care of any sort is something that Dink has never experienced before, so much so that he becomes changed. He may even love Andre. They both change. Andre returns with a repaired vigor, a new love, his future bright again and getting brighter. The pieces of his past are easier to deal with except one – no one knows the whereabouts of his beloved older brother, Peter, who in the midst of the family turmoil ran away all those years ago. Peter was his hero. Freak, well-known in the past for all the wrong reasons, and now, a well-loved ex-gangster, proves to be an amazing, reformed human being. He knows something about Peter’s whereabouts and cares deeply for Andre. But like all things, nothing just pops up in the sweet ether without all the preceding moments. Freak’s previous moments would scare a hound’s tooth jacket into stripes. But things have a way of catching up with you sometimes. Through it all, Andre is determined to change his life’s story. He longs to have his family intact and maybe start a new one of his own. With Andre’s star still rising in the art world, a dark star has fallen down to the streets of Philadelphia. The whole city is frightened by a terror out there who not only mugs and robs – this heartless mugger kills victims afterwards just for sport. After a breakout opening, Andre and his former lover wander through the busy streets to a popular area on the city’s waterfront. A gorgeous, gigantic moon rises from the Camden, New Jersey side. A moon, so gigantic, so big, that it has caused worlds to collide in surprising ways. A wise person once said: Everything is entwined forever and always. Sounds lovely. Sounds like pure bullshit. No wise person said it. I just made it up. Anyone with any sense knows that shit just happens. It’s all about how you deal with it. “THE SWEET” deals with it.