A young boy is sitting at a late-night fast food restaurant table, playing with a model car. A man enters. He says something to the boy. The video becomes dark and only the boy's groans of pain are heard as he is raped by the man. The scene takes off: it's morning, the boy lies naked in bed with his private parts covered by the blankets. His eyes are open and he is staring at the ceiling, expressionless.
This is how we are introduced to Nathan, a 13-year-old Canadian boy who has to prostitute himself to get drugs for his single, drug-addicted mother. Actually, Nathan turned 13 that same night. Really a bad way to celebrate a birthday. But unfortunately it's not over yet.
When at home, Nathan gives the drug to his mother that wishes him a happy birthday and tells him that there is a slice of cake in the fridge. While Nathan blows out the candles in the kitchen, we see his mother lying on the bed with her eyes open, dead, probably from an overdose.
Nathan is taken to the police station, where waiting for social services to come and entrust him to a foster family because it is not known where his father is and he has no other relatives in the city.
Taking advantage of the chaos unleashed by an arrested man, Nathan escapes.
Actually the arrested man is Boon Palmer, an undercover special policeman who is trying and capture a big drug dealer. The police pretended to arrest him because they had to plan the operation.
It's night: Nathan comes out from the bathroom of a gas station and sees the arrested man he saw at the police station. He's playing a fast food board game. Nathan sits down at his table and starts tinkering with the game, solving the puzzle.
Boon smiles, then he gets up, takes his hamburger and heads to a phone booth on the street; he makes a phone call, writing a phone number on the foggy surface of a car. When he comes out he realizes that the number has been deleted. Nathan is nearby and looks at him defiantly: it was he who deleted the number to force Boon to give him a lift to Vancouver where Nathan claims to be his father.
So Boon has to do what Nathan wants. After a driving journey, they arrive in the small town where Boon grew up and he tells Nathan that they will stop in a motel there.
The next morning Nathan has made breakfast and serves it to Boon who has just waked-up. He tells Nathan that he needs that number, but the boy refuses because he's worried that Boon might leave him as soon as he gets the number. Boon assures that he won't do it. However he has some things to do so he can wait.
What Boon has to do is go to his father's house, because the old man is unconscious, seriously ill. From what Boon tells his father, we can understand that their relationship had been difficult.
Meanwhile, Nathan is at the baseball field where he watches some kids play. Boon arrives, sits next to Nathan and tells him to join the boys on the field. Nathan does it even though he doesn't know how to play at all; a boy named Lloyd seems to take care of him.
At that moment Lloyd's mother, Erin, arrives: coincidentally, Erin and Boon were engaged when they were 17, but one day Boon flew away because he couldn't stand living with his father. Then Erin married Boon's best friend, Ray, who died when Lloyd was 4.
Erin obviously thinks Nathan is Boon's son and he lets her think so.
That same night the two boys go out with two older boys, Clay and Dennis. They smoke and drink.
Then Lloyd stays in the car with Dennis while Nathan and Clay are further away talking. Clay suddenly kisses Nathan on the mouth. Nathan retreats not as upset or shocked and Clay is astonished. Nathan explains that his mother and her boyfriend got excited if Nathan watched them have sex. He sometimes wants to hear all these filthy stuffs but he also wants to be a good guy.
Clay in tears of shame asks Nathan not to tell anyone what just happened and he assures Clay that this is their secret: Clay won't tell Nathan's and he won't tell Clay's.
Meanwhile, a drunken Dennis races his car towards the city monument (the world's largest ball of string) which slips from its support and rolls hitting an oncoming police car.
All four boys are taken to the police station.
Erin and Boon are in bed when they are told that Nathan and Lloyd are to be picked up at the police station. At that point Boon tells Erin that it is better she gets Nathan because the boy is not his son: Nathan told her he was and he went along with it because he wanted Erin to think he had someone.
Erin is amazed: who the hell is that boy? And who the hell really is Boon?
However, Boon decides to take a risk and go get Nathan just as Erin leaves with Lloyd.
So Boon and Nathan go back to the motel where Boon tells Nathan that they're leaving at the dawn and that he must talk to Erin. Nathan tells him that he wants to say goodbye to Lloyd too, but Boon rudely tells him that he can send Lloyd a postcard when he'll get Vancouver. There their paths will separate forever.
Later, Lloyd goes to the motel and reveals to Nathan that love has been reborn between his mother and Boon. This drives the jealousy of Nathan, who wants Boon only for himself: he goes crazy because he realizes that Boon will return without him so he scolds Lloyd and pushes him out. Left alone, Nathan bursts into tears.
When Boon returns, Nathan is deeply sleeping in bed, so Boon has to lie down next to him. The boy has only his undies on, so Boon can see in horror some long, deep scars on Nathan's back.
In the night, Nathan wakes up and seeing Boon at his side, he tries to reach his manliness. Boon suddenly wakes up, stops Nathan's hand and throws the boy to the ground; Nathan almost crying tells Boon that he can have sex with him if he wants; after all he is good enough at it and it will be for free.
Boon is really horrified and shouts at the boy to stop acting like this. Nathan, in tears and raging as well tells him that Erin doesn't need Boon and begs the man not to leave him alone.
Seeing no reaction, Nathan gets dressed and runs away very angry.
The next morning Boon tells Erin's that he must leave because something big is happening and he can't help Nathan who also has a father in Vancouver. As Boon leaves, Erin yells at him that he's not like his old father and must help Nathan.
It's night: Boon is on the phone with the drug dealer, when he sees Nathan standing on the sidewalk across the street: it's clear he's trying to sexually lure someone. A luxurious black Cadillac arrives: after talking to the driver for a while, Nathan gets into the car which leaves immediately.
After chasing the drug dealer that one is arrested by the police. Boon speeds up and disappears into the night determined to find Nathan.
In a hotel room, Nathan is half naked and the man tries to caress and kiss him, but the boy dodges and runs away, locking himself in the bathroom. Fortunately Boon has noticed the black Cadillac parked in the hotel parking lot and with gun in hand forces the doorman to take him to the room where Nathan and his rapist are.
Boon enters and throws the man to the ground shouting at him to stay down or he will kill him!
Then he heads to the bathroom and gently knocks on the closed door asking Nathan to open.
The door opens: Nathan is sitting on the bathtub step wearing only his pants and is very upset and in tears, with his head on his knees.
Boon asks him if the man harmed him. Nathan nods and says tearfully that he doesn't have a dad... he asked his mother about him but she didn't know. He has no one.
Boon is touched and tells him to come closer. The boy does it a little reluctantly but Boon hugs Nathan tightly; also Nathan holds Boon close, in tears, with his head on Boon's chest who gently caresses his head. Boon tells him not to worry because he won't let him go.
When they exit the hotel, surrounded by police cars, Nathan realizes that Boon is a cop and not a criminal. Then Boon and Nathan get in the car and head somewhere into the night.
Actually they are going to Erin's house: when they get there late at night, Erin and Lloyd open smiling. Everyone hugs each other and enters the house.
A new life is to begin for all of them.
Overall, that is a very moving movie about the unexpectedly and pleasant switch happened in the lives of two lonely and deeply wounded souls who meet by chance
The most woundel soul is obviously Nathan's: he's only thirteen, he doesn't have no one but his drug addicted mother for whom he's forced to sell his young body and who dies the day of his birtday.
We cannot help but feel pity and affection for this little boy who just needs someone who loves him and doesn't treat him like a sexual object. As he says, he just wants to be a good boy, despite the terrible wounds that have been inflicted on his body and soul.
Boon's wounds were caused by an emotionally absent father who made his son a wandering man who can't empathize with anyone. A hardness that melts when he promises Nathan that he will be with him forever. In the end, his life gave him the chance to prove that he is better than his old father and that he will be a wonderful father to Nathan. Because those who are hurt know how not to hurt
As for the acting, the performance of the then fifteen-year-old Branden Nadon was fantastic: it really seemed like he was experiencing first-hand the ugliness that life had reserved for him. And I think it would have been nice if the film had investigated his character's life more thoroughly, because there are so many things left unsaid.
