Ben Grady (Grant Rosenmeyer) has lost his 31-year-old wife Sarah. He had left the house to pick up some mac n cheese and upon returning 30 minutes later she was dead. Ben is in deep grief. He sits like a zombie wrapped in a blanket including in front of his house for three successive days.
A suspicious police detective questions Ben and through selective interpretation has suspicions Ben murdered Sarah for insurance money. She has her eyes peeled on Ben.
While browsing the internet a YouTube video catches his eye. It is of a man jumping off the cliff in what looks like a suicide attempt but once he jumps over the cliff he shoots up in the air in flight!
Ben investigates further and on the dark web watches a video of a long-haired mystical elderly man, Mealworm (Paul Raci), who professes to be able to teach humans how to fly for a payment of $5,400. Ben pays the amount and a manual “The Secret Art of Human Flight” arrives full of typos like some Nigerian scam e-mail. Warning!
Mealworm arrives shortly after to train Ben how to fly. Five chapters of the manual are taught by Mealworm; “The Foreign Home”, “Preparing the Body”, “Preparing the Mind”, “Conquering Irrational Fear” and “The Secret Art of Human Flight”.
Ben endures all manner of mystical and cooky acts such as sleeping on the roof, clearing his house of all furniture (except that in his writing room), shaving part of his body hair, washing his clothes by hand and drying them in the sun and taking a mystical spiritual adventure i.e. a magic mushroom trip.
Friends and relatives become concerned about Ben’s behaviour. The suspicious detective does a search on the plates of Mealworm’s Winnebago named Sally. Very interesting information is obtained. Ben suffers an incident while undergoing a Conquering Irrational Fear and is admitted to a psychiatric institution.
What occurs next may very well put an enormous smile on your face because your heart has a little illogical component called “belief in fantasy” or you may frown and let “logic” and psychiatry” form your conclusion. In either situation your voyage through the film will be entertaining. It may also cause you to think not only the horrors of grief but its power to motivate and change the human spirit for the better.
Directed by H.P. Mendoza and very cleverly written by Jesse Orenshein.
You can see the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpqcACF46sk
RKS 2024 Film Rating 94/100.
As of 23August2024 Available on Demand.
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