MYRTLE, a trailer park Mom from Indiana, cooks dinner for her son. But something’s not quite right. This kitchen is anonymous, industrial, and Myrtle is working to a deadline. As her composure unravels we realize that 21 grams is all that separates life from death.
The film opens ominously to a commercial kitchen setting. Myrtle is alone in the kitchen with a set of prepped ingredients for a simple three course meal which she is to prepare consisting of wieners, meatballs, and lemon pie. Myrtle seems to be apprehensive and filled with dread. For her concern about hygiene, she quotes from the instruction manual, detailing the strict guidelines.
Watch the Official Trailer for MYRTLE as directed by Patricia McCormack
She begins to prepare the meal and while doing so speaks directly to the audience about her son Brandon. Alluding to a distance between them by referring to the fact that he to a new name. She cries – blaming it on the onions she is cutting – stating she is “will cray no more”.
Myrtle continues preparing the meal in a methodical manner, intermittently reminiscing on memories of her youth, family, her son, and other facets of life as she seemingly grapples with reality and grasps for a sense of stability. Haunted by a memory of a body being found, Myrtle’s panic and disorientation begins to increase dramatically – causing her to make mistakes. She trashes the dish and begins on a second batch. Setting a timer, Myrtle worries that she may not meet her deadline of 5pm.
It is at this point she divulges that her son is weighed once a week “pound for pound”. His website tells her that his soul weighs 21 grams…. The difference between what a person weighs when they are dead versus alive. That’s the weight of a human life.
She finishes the meal five minutes before the 5pm deadline. It is then that she sits on the floor of the industrial kitchen and reveals that her son is to take his last meal at 5 PM. He will be executed in the early hours of the morning by lethal injection. Detailing the injections and their ingredients, Myrtle unravels in a gut-wrenching, tragic ending as a mother who remembers his hot little cheeks between her two hands. It is then that the audience realizes a mother’s love is unconditional… even in the face of capital punishment.
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