American Showcase/Disability/LGBTQ/Relationships
Jeannie, who has been paraplegic since youth and gets around in a wheelchair, and Lauren are twin sisters. Jeannie co-owns a used & vintage clothing store with her semi-estranged friend Amanda, while Lauren is between jobs and between boyfriends, considering going overseas to teach English. When tensions between Jeannie and Amanda escalate to the point of a threatened lawsuit, Jeannie is sent into a mild panic. She calls on an ex-boyfriend, Merrill, who has just graduated from law school and is studying for the bar, and after falling immediately into bed together, Merrill begins distracting himself from his own problems by trying to assist Jeannie. Beeswax is the third feature film directed by Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation). Like Bujalski's previous films, the cast is made up of non-professional (but carefully cast) actors and filmed with a light, fast-moving crew. Something like a legal thriller for anyone who finds "legal thriller" to be an oxymoron, Beeswax is also a story about families, real and imagined, people taking care of each other when they want to, when they need to, when they ought to.