The Marriage of Charlie Johnson (2008)

Victims of the dot-com boom and bust, a couple - NICK and CHARLETON (Charlie) - escape from their crumbling lives in San Francisco to the pristine Anderson Valley where JAY, Charlie's godfather, owns a winery. In this bucolic small town, home to many boutique vineyards, Nick and Charlie just want regroup from their business failure where they lost everything. Jay, however, is close to death after a long struggle with cancer, and seeks to leave his vineyard to a young illegal immigrant named Edgar who has cared for Jay and his property for the last years of his life. Jay proposes that Charlie marry Edgar so that he may legally inherit, and the three young people are swept away by visions of a simple, unfettered life. However, the trio's nascent ambitions and jealousies soon threaten their expectations of pastoral bliss and the secrets of the past may soon doom this idyllic existence forever. Inspired by the works of Terrence Malick, most notably Days of Heaven, THE MARRIAGE OF CHARLIE JOHNSON is a poetic and lyrical exploration of immigration, ownership, forgiveness and the death of the American Dream.