Five Easy Pieces

A talented but disillusioned classical pianist, from a family of accomplished musicians, abandons his privileged upbringing and promising future to work on oil rigs in Southern California. He adopts a blue-collar identity, preferring the rough rigors of manual labor and the liberating anonymity it affords over the trappings of his past. Despite his intellectual and artistic capabilities, he chooses to live a directionless and hedonistic lifestyle marked by aimless drifting, bar-hopping, and casual relationships with women, notably with his naive and talkative girlfriend.

The pianist’s variance with his past and potential comes to a head when he learns that his father, who he has not seen in years, suffers from debilitating strokes that have rendered him speechless. Compelled by a sense of familial obligation or perhaps a concealed longing to reconnect with his roots, he embarks on a road trip to his family's home in the Pacific Northwest, accompanied by his girlfriend. This journey confronts him with his estranged family’s expectations and the life he could have had, setting the stage for a collision between his chosen persona and the inescapable influences of his past. These challenges force him to question whether his self-imposed exile is truly the path to freedom he believed it to be or just another form of confinement.