Synopsis

At the tender age of 9, Lucas and his twin brother, Paul, find themselves alone at a hospital being interviewed by the police. Next door, their mother is being patched up. Downstairs, their father is in the morgue. Lucas cracks under questioning and dobs his brother in: their mum gave poisoned tea to Paul, who took it to their abusive dad. She goes to prison, and Paul is sent to an institution. Meanwhile. a kindly foster-father discovers Lucas has a strange neurological condition – he cannot recognise people by their faces. In trying to seek treatment for him, Lucas is taken back to the hospital, which triggers an extreme panic attack. Despite their best efforts to settle him into their family, he remains distant and miserable until, late one night, there is a tap at the window: Paul has escaped and has come to break him out too. They run away together to spend the rest of their childhood on the streets, pulling scams and small-time robberies to survive.

Some years later, now adults, Paul and Lucas are the consummate criminal duo. Lucas is the brains and Paul the brawn. Paul has to help Lucas figure out who people are by whispering in his ear, but despite this limitation they have earned a fearsome reputation. However, even in the midst of their success, Lucas is not doing well. He is becoming more and more withdrawn, barely leaving the house, speaking only to Paul. Paul tries to convince him to get help, even finding him a therapist (Cosette) who recommends hallucinogenic group therapy, but Lucas refuses to go anywhere near a medical setting. In desperation, Paul recruits a third team member to help with their upcoming heist - Casey, whom he meets in Cosette’s waiting room. The job goes well enough, but Paul never returns home, only to turn up unconscious in hospital. Both Casey and the money are nowhere to be found. What’s worse, the money’s previous owner, a dangerous drug lord (Caspar) gives Lucas 48 hours to get the money back, or Paul will be killed.

Through Cosette, Lucas tracks Casey to an hallucinogenic therapy retreat. He infiltrates Cosette’s group therapy session, trying to find Casey without revealing himself. The program is explained to involve three stages; first, a group hallucination session induced by something akin to LSD; then, intensive talk therapy enhanced by an MDMA-analogue; and finally, a spiritual quest on Peyote. He is forced to take the first of these to avoid being detected, and thus reluctantly gets to know the other group members. Like him, they are people with unusual (possibly psychogenic) conditions. Even more reluctantly, as the session progresses, he begins to confront his own trauma. Finally he determines that Casey is not in the group, and leaves to search the rest of the grounds where he attacks a man he thinks is Casey, but it’s a mistake! Lucas is taken away by security, and in the process Casey is alerted to his presence. With murderous intent, Casey comes after Lucas who narrowly escapes…

INTERVAL 

Lucas is hiding out back in his therapy group. They are aware of some kind of emergency happening outside, but have been left to their own devices waiting for Cosette to come back. Lucas wants to leave, but Casey is still out there. As reluctant as ever, Lucas stays with the group and inadvertently takes the enhanced MDMA - only make an unexpected therapeutic breakthrough! He admits: it was he, not his brother, who poisoned their dad. An announcement confirms that the emergency situation is over and Casey is gone, and although the group want him to stay, Lucas leaves on his mission.

Lucas breaks into the records room and locates Casey’s file, searching for clues as to where he might have gone. Finding not much more than a phone number and some case notes, he calls Casey, who is predictably defiant. In the course of their conversation, Lucas reveals that he is looking at file notes that include Casey’s diagnosis with an embarrassing condition: Genital Retraction Syndrome. Casey is enraged and threatens to kill both him and his unconscious brother. Now, with two psychopaths gunning for an incapacitated Paul, Lucas realises the only option left is to go to the hospital and smuggle him out.

Lucas arrives at the hospital doors full of resolve. He tries to walk in, but panic overcomes him and he collapses. A group of people come to his aid: his therapy buddies! All the drama at the retreat had turned their trip sour, and Cosette brought them to the emergency room to try to calm them down.  Lucas is astounded to find that he can actually recognise them now - just not their faces.

Lucas tells them the whole story, and they all agree that he is one of their own and they have to help him. With the group around him like a forcefield he is able to walk through the doors and into the hospital. Once inside, they plan a heist to extract Paul, armed with knowledge gleaned from Casey’s file: strong women will function as a ‘freeze trigger’.

The group distract Caspar’s goons and get Lucas into Paul’s room, but a hovering doctor is making things difficult as he preps an injection. Just in time, Lucas realises the doctor is actually Casey in disguise. They wrestle for the needle, but Lucas has no chance in a physical struggle. Thinking quickly, he does his best impression of Annie Wilkes in Misery. Casey is shaken, so he follows it up with Ellen Ripley from Aliens, and then brings it home with Norma Bates from Psycho. In his panic, Casey stumbles backwards and falls out the window to his death.

The commotion alerts Caspar that something is going on. He arrives with a heavy in tow, but the therapy group swings into motion using each of their unique conditions to their advantage. Caspar is defeated, and the money recovered from the boot of Casey’s car – but before Lucas and Paul can head off into the sunset, they decide to spend some time with their new friends and finish the final stage of Lucas’s therapy: the Peyote. Unfortunately, it’s primary affect seems to be vomiting! That is, until Lucas has a vision of the kindly foster father from the only functioning family he ever knew. For the first time in his life, he feels at peace.