SYNOPSIS:
In 1983, a heat wave rips through America as a national media frenzy rages over Michael Withers - sentenced to death for the brutal murder of 45 women. Michael’s trial was defined by his media obsession and repeated attempts to court them.
Warden Coleman is tasked with fulfilling Michael’s execution, after his predecessor was fired by Governor McCullough following botched executions, abuse and corruption. Coleman is determined to reform the prison culture and its rehabilitation of inmates. Years prior, his son was killed in a street-gang retribution incident.
Warden Coleman applies for a charitable grant to develop a rehabilitation program. In the interview, he explains he’s “not generally in favour of executing men”, but this price is worth enduring to enact change.
Michael doesn’t appeal his sentence, not wanting to “debase myself”, instead doggedly pursing an interview with ‘Emilia’, the queen of daytime TV. Warden Coleman and McCullough block Michael’s requests, but Michael threatens to appeal his sentence and take his case to the supreme court, citing breach of his first amendment rights. McCullough relents, sensing the stakes if Michael were to win. She allows Michael’s interview, but on condition it take place the day of his execution. Michael ignores his lawyer’s warnings that a last minute appeal would likely fail.
As his interview approaches, Michael repeatedly hears a Woman’s voice in his cell, but sees no one.
The heat wave worsens, and Warden Coleman discovers a lack of existing contingency plans despite previous inmate deaths. He institutes makeshift, but inadequate, measures.
In his interview, Michael claims an absence of free will and choice in his actions, which infuriates Emilia. The interview builds to a climax as Michael admits to the murder of 5 teenage girls, expecting this to delay his execution. However, McCullough decides to proceed. Emilia destroys Michael’s interview tape on air rather than suffer the humiliation of the nation witnessing her loss of composure. She claims to do this in protest against the country’s “lack of shame” in obsessing over Michael.
Before his execution, enraged, Michael hears the voice of the Woman. She appears as his mother. Through symbolism, it is clear this is a manifestation of Mephistopheles as America. She offers him immortality in exchange for a drop of blood. Doubting his sanity, but with nothing to lose, Michael pricks his thumb.
The lethal injection renders Michael unconscious, but he survives.
Ignoring Warden Coleman’s concerns about “rushing things”, McCullough orders Michael’s second execution. Michael survives despite huge drug doses. The media and public frenzy becomes ‘a den of rage’ outside the prison. The media hound Coleman and accuse him of being “no better than the last guy”. He receives death threats, which panics his wife, who suffers from crippling anxiety since their son’s death.
The heat wave accelerates and several inmates suffer life-threatening heat strokes. Warden Coleman moves the vulnerable inmates, concentrating the youngest in the hottest wing (south).
As Warden Coleman investigates but fails to find an explanation for Michael surviving, Michael is stabbed by an inmate. The prison doctor (Guiterez, Mexican) is unable to explain “surviving that much blood loss”. Guiterez is recently divorced due to his alcoholism, this being how he copes with the job.
Warden Coleman implores the governor to delay another execution, citing “visceral emotions” and “the threat of violence” if it were to fail. She refuses. Coleman suspects the Governor’s diagnosis of terminal cancer is clouding her judgement.
As the heat wave worsens, news reaches the inmates of Michael surviving the stabbing, triggering a riot in south wing.
With time running out, Warden Coleman tries to convince Michael to reveal where he buried the teenage girls. Michael tells him “You’ll never understand, that’s the joy".
As his third execution looms, Michael manages to smuggle his ‘Manifesto for America’ out of the prison. It reaches the media and violence breaks out between pro and anti-death penalty activists.
Warden Coleman begs the Governor to delay, but, delirious from pain, she dismisses him.
Lost, distraught, and without options, Warden Coleman, through subtext, blackmails Guiterez into pronouncing Michael dead in exchange for "you get to keep your job, stay in this country, and be a family again”. As the Warden leaves, ashamed, he says “I don’t want to know”.
Michael is electrocuted. At a press conference, Warden Coleman announces Michael’s death and burial in the penitentiary grounds.
From his office window, morally broken, Warden Coleman watches a hellish forest fire in the distance. An American bald eagle is seen in the field outside the prison.
Comments
Summary of themes
It feels as if America is reaching a moment. An inflection point. One that could tip into a potentially irretrievable future. Of moral bankruptcy, in the absence of change. We see this in its gun violence, its opioid crisis, its go-all-out pursuit of capitalism, its none-for-all healthcare system, its mass incarceration and execution of its citizens, its addiction to fame and celebrity, the myths it spins, its past, and its political polarisation. The seeds for this were undoubtedly sown long ago, some perhaps in the 1980s, when Bright Star is set, when the creep of political polarisation began in earnest. This story was born from me witnessing America’s troubles.
It unsettles me to observe the most powerful country on Earth suffer through these issues whilst having the overwhelming means to tackle them, if only it chose to. I find this a disquieting and upsetting contradiction. As a doctor, I’ve witnessed suffering and death in countries that don’t have the economic resources to help its citizens as they would wish to. This script is a response to America's current state and the failure of its moral duty towards its citizens, despite its wealth and power. It places my feelings within the context of a character, the Warden, who faces a moment, a decision, in which his identity is irreversibly lost. The principle theme of Bright Star therefore can be summarised as ‘America corrupts the soul’, as it tracks the journey of a moral man, Warden Coleman, who ultimately commits a moral atrocity as a result of the weight of America’s nature upon him.
Within this theme, lies a multitude of sub-themes and subjects that are central to America’s historical and modern identity, such as ‘America is guilty of mass murder’, ‘The crimes of the individual are born from America’s lust for violence’, ‘The platforms that the media give to certain individuals renders the media complicit in the nature of those individuals’, ‘Our current obsession with celebrity revels in superficiality and soundbites’, ‘As a nation, America is losing its integrity’. Whilst some of the themes are framed as statements, others are presented more as questions, such as ‘Where does the boundary between free will and determinism lie?’, ‘To what extent can we hold a nation responsible for the nature and actions of its citizens?’, “If a moral individual commits a moral atrocity for the greater good, do they cease being moral?”. This is therefore a challenging film with many ideas and themes that are drawn to the surface over the course of the film.
Bright Star is subversive, heavy in dialogue and visual symbolism, and with a touch of the supernatural. The film relies on character, dialogue, and symbolism to express its ideas and themes. The main theme ‘America corrupts the soul’ is critically dependent on symbolism. Structurally this film is unusual as the story gradually morphs its focus towards the Warden, but this is essential in subverting the audience’s expectations. America has a lust for blood, whether that be in its obsession with true crime or the lengths it goes to to execute its citizens. By engaging the audience with a story that initially focuses on a mass murderer, then gradually drawing them towards the Warden, the audience become complicit in that lust. By the end of the film, I want the audience to feel conflicted, terrified, and in awe of America’s ability to corrupt an honest individual.
Whilst this film doesn’t offer a solution to America’s problems, my aim is to make the audience feel something they aren’t used to feeling. And in that feeling, I hope to inspire people’s thoughts and dialogue in trying to reach for a different version of America’s future.