Twilight Highway (1995)

Mystery and fate collide in the darkly comic Twilight Highway, the story of five disengaged, misplaced people whose paths collide by fate or coincidence in a New Jersey roadside motel. A motel that is set in the industrial wasteland that is New Jersey's Meadowlands. Lenny Sterling (Sandy Baron) is the Prospero-like ruler of this sad eerie kingdom: He is the motel's manager, concierge, chamber maid and he is the featured attraction of the motel's bar/lounge. A performer in the style of Dean Martin, he performs nightly but there's never an audience. Lenny's life is transformed when four young misfits are stranded at his motel. Jimmy (D.V. DeVincentis) and Eugene (Damon Saleem) are on a road trip from Ohio, headed to Times Square when their car breaks down. Shelby (Laurie Taylor-Williams) is on the run from a violent boyfriend and along for the ride is her best friend Maryanne (Gillian Hemstead) Haunted by his Atlantic City past, Lenny jumps at the opportunity for an audience and a chance for redemption from his solitary life and painful unresolved memories. Conflicted, the young people are at first awkward with each other and suspicious of Lenny. Brought together by chance and the seemingly benevolent manipulation of their "host", they soon find it difficult to leave. Unexpected relationships are forged as Jimmy and Shelby connect romantically. Jimmy, a working class idealist feels a magnetic attraction for Shelby, strong willed and abrasive, a young woman coming to terms with her fierce sexuality. Intropective and sincere, Eugene is intrigued by Maryanne's vulnerability and unaffected shyness. The four bask in the sun by the weed grown pool, as Lenny serves up meal after meal and performs for them nightly in the motel's bar/lounge. But all is not well in the Meadowlands. Shelby's menacing boyfriend Junior (Christian Maelen)is hell bent on tracking her down and its only a matter of time. And Lenny, tormented by his past, knows that the fortuitous arrival of his guests and Maryanne's uncanny resemblance to the mysterious Lollie Train offer his last chance to free himself from his crippling memories. Twilight Highway marries surreal imagery and existential questions with vivid real characters - a portrait of lost youth that is timeless.