Logline
During her senior year, a misfit girl Rissa who isn’t entirely sure she isn’t a doll, sets out to hoodwink the establishment and simultaneously destroy another student (her nemesis) What aspect of her character will prevail? Maybe she is more authentic than the people around her after all.
Synopsis
CLARISSA STEELE (16), more commonly known as Rissa, is a socially rebellious teenager living in Influence, Nevada. Every day she carefully crafts on the face of a doll in the mirror. She leaves her house, eagerly checks the mailbox, takes care of a local bum, fills up car meters with her friend TUNES (17), goes to school, and finally, goes to her waitress job at the family diner. In memory of her grandmother, she goes to church once a week, usually when no-one can see her. She has no goals beyond seeing her arch rival Lara leave for college and never come back. They were once friends but a vicious rumor sparked a vast divide with an intensity that only teenage girls seem to be able to manage. It was after their split that she started wearing her new face.
Her best friend, Tunes, is a desert slacker who dresses in all black and carries around a white ipod which has been hacked to “carry every song in the world on it.” Tunes and Rissa hook up (literally) as Tunes transfers underground gems to her ipod every day on her lunch break. Rissa discovers that Lara has a meeting with an admission counselor from Harvard. She would be the first person in town to ever get into an Ivy league school. Rissa stalls Lara and hijacks the interview. She pretends to be Lara, but the interviewer sniffs out the deception. He was so entertained by the show, however that he suggests that she apply to Harvard. Rissa is a B student. She asks what it would take to get her into Harvard and the admissions counselor tells her the way to get around personal flaws and shortcomings in Ivy League society: get recommendations from people who matter.
Rissa racks her brain to come up with people to provide her recommendations and decides that Michelle Obama, Jon Oliver, and Lin-Manuel Miranda would be her best bet. She does not know these people, however, and comes up with a plan. Her idea is to pretend that she is a young person whom all three have already met through special programs. She has Tunes research and find information on such youngsters and has him film her “multiple identities” as video blogs. She will then apply to Harvard under whichever false name gets the recommendations. She knows that her plan will require a massive amount of lying. She assuages her conscience in her weekly church visits.
Nemesis Lara hires Tunes to help her with video blogging. Tunes doesn’t understand loyalty. They become a couple. Because of Lara, Rissa doesn’t have anyone to turn to. Her father is an emotional amputee who heads to the caves every night to relive the days when Rissa’s mother, a restless soul, lived with them. Her boyfriend Charlie is a diminutive illegal immigrant who speaks to her soul, but doesn’t like the fact that she is lying to get ahead.
Rissa knows that the only way to get ahead, when one doesn’t have power, is to lie. Society is built on lies. She hears nothing to the contrary from School and she crafts one so well that she gets her recommendations. She puts those together with some essays she stole from the Internet and has it all ready for the admissions counselor.
Her mom, Haley shows up for Christmas Day. It’s the day that’s the best for quitting smoking, she says. And she gives her last two packs to Rissa as a Christmas gift. They have dinner together, but when she pops out for some fresh air, the cigarettes are gone and so is she. Rissa is left with only the faint smell of nicotine and deception mixed with the faraway scent of nog.
Charlie convinces her to make an alternate application and even pays for it to be sent in. He believes in the true her. She takes off her mask for this one. She doesn’t yet know who is behind it. In this application she is herself. Her recommendations come from the drunk in the ditch, the meter maid who seriously dislikes her, and her father, the man who never says more than two words consecutively. She takes off her makeup and reveals a beauty that comes with honesty. It is stunning.
This application makes her feel good; it makes her connect with her life in a way that advances what is good about humanity. She gets rejected.
Rissa (the honest application) and Lara both receive rejection letters from Harvard. When she gets home, she finds an acceptance letter from Harvard for her fake application. This is the real decision, the real test for her character. Who will she decide to be?
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