All the King’s Horses
Genre: Drama
Location: Wooded Lake/Small Town
Form: Feature
Length: 117 pages
* * * Finalist, Moondance International Film Festival * * *
Logline: Wary when a slow and troubled runaway comes to his door believing he’s his son, a widowed surgeon pretends to be boy’s father until the abusive grandfather shows up to kill them both to protect the secret of his own incest.
Synopsis: Since his mom killed herself, Jim Reynolds, a sweet, mentally slow teen, lives with his abusive grandparents. Armed with a name from the account of an affair in his mom’s diary and against his grandparent’s edict, Jim relentlessly searches to find his dad. Surgeon Steven Bradford is still grieving the loss of his beloved life partner Fran, when Jim shows up at his door. Though his lawyer warns of a scam, Steven has him hire an investigator to look into Jim’s history. Steven uses a cut on the boy’s cheek as an opportunity to do a DNA swab. When the grandfather commands Jim home, Steven doesn’t like his tone and refuses to return the boy despite warnings that Jim torched the home of another potential “father.” 
The lawyer says initial findings point to Jim as emotionally unstable and possibly destructive. Steven’s protective instincts kick in. He says he’ll help Jim whatever the truth. The men agree to meet later to review the investigator’s files. When Steven takes Jim out on his boat for some fishing, he confesses to Jim that he is not Fran, the ‘man’ Jim thought was his father. Steven tells him Francis is dead but convinces Jim he wants to help him. That evening while Steven and his lawyer review the case files, Fran’s trashy sisters take their late brother’s possible son out for his 18th birthday. That’s when Jim learns Francis was gay.
Steven discovers inconsistencies in the report on Jim’s mother’s death, and the grandparents begin to look more suspect. When the grandfather shows up in person to take Jim, he discovers the investigator’s notes and decides Jim and Steven must be killed to protect the secret of his incestuous affair with his daughter. In an attempt to stage an accident, the grandfather sends Jim and Steven out to sea in a burning speed boat, but Jim wakes up just in time to get them both off the boat. In time, they learn that Steven’s life partner Fran really was Jim’s father, but biological parentage no longer matters. Jim has found his caring, protective dad.
