The Wake

A restless 15-year-old has spent his life surrounded by death, raised in his parents' funeral business in a small town USA. Viewing his alcoholic father as profiting from the dead, our hero does him one better: While a wake is held in his parents' funeral home, he breaks into the deceased's house, counting on the place being empty. In his view, the dead no longer need what he pockets. He recruits his deaf-mute younger brother to join him in his capers, unaware that his lucky streak is about to run out. (Dallas International Film Festival)