Crystal Cross

Crystal Cross is the story of Dotty, a Christian singer in trouble, intent on reversing her fate. When she eyes James, who looks a whole lot like Jesus, that’s her sign from God — her ride out of town. Only James is no Jesus. After a string of failed suicides to stop the pain of losing his daughter, he’s driving cross-country to California to get the last one right. This is the odd-couple love story of DOTTY and JAMES: two desperate people with opposite personalities, on opposite journeys, traveling down the same road. As the miles pass, Dotty and James eat, drink, listen to music, and fight, little by little revealing their truths. James is alive but ready to die. A musician who doesn’t play. A father without a child. Dotty has never ridden in an airplane but aims to be a star. She wants to save herself for marriage, only to discover she’s pregnant. As they drive, the road soothes their individual desperation. They find beauty everywhere and in each other, but it’s not a romance you’d recognize. There are no promises, only requests (“can you postpone your suicide so I can record my record?”); no saving each other from their worst selves (James goes on a binge, Dotty thoughtlessly pretends he’s father of her child). In fact, it’s while they immerse themselves in beauty—traipsing through a blooming desert, visiting absurd roadside attractions, recording a Patsy Cline song in an old time recording booth—that they hold each other’s harshest truths in affection, as if they are the most normal thing in the world. Growing closer than lovers, they usher each other along on their very important journeys to life and death. The only hard part is not knowing how their relationship will end, once they run out of road.

It stars Rubyrose Hill (Girls tv series), Richie Follin, Lukas Haas (Inception, Witness), Missi Pyle (Gone Girl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), Samantha Robinson (The Love Witch, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Luke Baines (The Girl in the Photographs, A24’s Under the Silverlake) and David Lowe (Midnight in Paris).

The film also serves as an album movie with a 15 song soundtrack. Inspired by Prince’s “Purple Rain” and John Water’s “Crybaby”, the film features all original music and songs written by Richie Follin.