UNDERMIND
Nevil Dwek
USA 2003, 108 min.

“Undermind—winner of the Best Feature Film award at both Dances with Films and the Stony Brook Film Festival—is a smart, slickly made psychological thriller.”

—Variety

What if you woke up one morning and your tattoos were gone? Nevil Dwek’s feature debut is the mind-bending tale of Derrick and Zane.

Derrick is a 27 year-old trust fund baby with a beautiful fiancée and a predestined career path in the corporate law firm run by his late father’s friend. He’s also a raging drunk controlled by his domineering mother. Zane is a 27 year-old small-time criminal, talented con artist and aspiring musician who is haunted by the violent death of his father, a New York City cop. He’s also an occasional drug dealer controlled by his sociopathic older brother.

One morning after a serious drinking binge, Derrick wakes up in a seedy apartment beside a beautiful stranger. She obviously knows him very well—and so does everyone else who comes to the apartment. On the other side of town, Zane wakes up in a world of wealth, power and privilege beside a beautiful stranger. When she leaves him alone in the room, he spies an unattended wallet beside the bed and grabs the cash and credit cards. Intent on making a hasty exit with his newfound wealth, he gets up to leave and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror—and his tattoos are missing.

Although they will never meet, their lives are more connected than either could possibly imagine.

—Bruce Fletcher