Twelve-year-old Mikal lives with his father Jason, mother Tonya and cat Smokey in cramped conditions in a run-down hotel room. So-called “flophouses” offer accommodation to all those who cannot escape the radical inequality of the US real estate market and are forced to lead their lives on the margins of society. The few square metres serve as bedroom, living room and kitchen, dishes are done in the bathtub. Nothing but a thin curtain separates Mikal’s “realm” from his parents’ bed, and the only escapes from the confines of his home are the lonely hotel corridors and the vending machine in the lobby. But their family life is put to the test not only by the precarious living conditions but also by his mother’s alcohol abuse.
Despite these difficult circumstances, moments of love, affection and dreaming shine through. It seems almost harmonious when, after a fierce argument, father and son kneel in front of the bathtub, washing a mountain of dishes and jokingly adopting the language of commands in a canteen kitchen. In her three-year observation, director Monica Strømdahl captures such ambivalences in fragile and intimate images whose immediacy is always palpable.