Collision

Stephen Newman

 

Marty Culhane is heading out of town. He has lost his girlfriend Tilda and their new born child in a collision with a long haul truck on an Australian country road, while they are on their way to show the new born to Tilda’s parents. Marty escapes to London. Things are not working out as planned, the various attempts at redemption, of reconciliation, the idea of heading somewhere as long as it’s not where he is.

While this is happening, his brother, Fergus, returns with his family from a holiday, to discover his successful corporate career at a crossroads, a boss who no longer feels the need to rely on him, and his son Toby, who he had predestined for sporting glory, with constant headaches that threaten every version of his own predetermined plan.

There are road ghosts, amphetamines, careers on the slide, families not getting on and through all that, people trying to find roads that take them somewhere safe.

It’s an allegory, a tragedy, a meditation on the definition of success and failure. It’s mostly a story of people attempting to come to terms with plans that don’t quite work out, attempting to resolve conflicts with each other and discovering fresh starts.