House of a Higher Truth
Feature, Drama
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After fleeing an abusive relationship, a once timid young woman turns harsh to survive. Until she crosses a misogynistic Reverend with a deeply sinister side. On the run with nowhere to go, she plans to rob a rancher. However, when she grows close to him, she must choose between giving this man her trust or keeping herself safe the only way she knows how.
Concept
I’ve heard a lot of conversations about the grief and fear that come after surviving domestic violence and sexual assault. But I never heard anyone talk about the utter rage I felt. The way in which these experiences hardened my heart and made me cold.
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These horrific experiences changed the lens through which I looked at the world, and in turn, I let that change the way I saw myself. This is what inspired me to write “House of a Higher Truth”
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Claire, a young woman raised in a tumultuous household, dreams of a love that will rescue her from it all. She runs off with the first man that shows her love, but he turns out to be nothing like she thought.
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Years after escaping her abuser, Claire starts a new life in a new state. But she is no longer the wide eyed, naïve, and hopeful girl who sees beauty in the world. Claire has grown bitter and resentful. She reflects back to the world what it has shown her.
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She slings drinks and hustles lecherous men for cash in a dive bar. Working along with her friend Ann, a seemingly naïve woman who is, in ways, reminiscent of a younger Claire. In an effort to protect Ann from what she has experienced, Claire takes Ann under her wing. However well intended, Claire is not always the best influence.
One day Claire crosses the wrong man, a misogynistic Reverend with a vile temper. Claire and Ann soon discover this man has a deeply sinister secret. Fearing that no one would believe two troubled barmaids with a storied past over a man of God, Claire and Ann flee in a panic.
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But they don’t get very far, as they are soon stuck on the side of the interstate a few hours away from El Paso with no money, no gas, and nowhere to go.​..
​​ Claire forges a plan for them to rob two ranchers. John, a man with his own painful past, and his younger brother Tommy, who may be even more naïve and helpless than Ann.
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But things don’t go quite as expected, when Ann soon has hatches a plan of her own. Leaving Claire alone at a strange man’s house. After a few heated exchanges, Claire finds herself opening up to John in ways she’d never expected. John sees another version of her underneath her tough exterior, one that she thought was long gone.
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With the Reverend getting closer to tracking down Claire, learning who she can and can’t trust may be the only thing that keeps her alive as everything comes boiling over to a tense and bloody finale.
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This is a story about remembering the truth of who you are, beyond what your trauma has told you.
"House of a Higher Truth" Script U.S. Copyright © by Rebecca Arroyo
and Registered with The Writers Guild of America
