“It was never about suicide.”

A quadriplegic boy, experiences life and finds his place in the world through the epic stories of a quad man who only wants to die.  Consigned to one hospital floor, through their eyes we get insight into the professional and personal lives of the staff/patients.

SYNOPSIS:

A man’s failed suicide attempt leaves him a bed ridden quadriplegic. With no family or friends left, he is remanded to a long-term care facility where he exists in a limbo world defined by a room, a bed and the limited movement of his head. Imprisoned in his limp body, he can neither live nor die by his choosing.

He sinks into the repetitious daily rut of interminable hours of boredom punctuated by overly cheery nurses entering his space and body ‘without even buying him a drink’. One day, a boy in an electric wheel chair enters his room, stopping at the doorway staring dumbfounded to find another like him.

What ensues is a friendship based on necessity and written on the walls of their communal hospital room. Two talking heads, two beds facing each other: the explorer and the innocent. Answering the persistent questions by a boy who has never lived, the man shares his epic life and in doing so finds his own salvation. In the lives of the staff and other patients, the boy observes life playing out in front of him. The Storyteller is born.

The boy’s storytelling V.O. narrative is the glue that binds the stark reality of the hospital with the rich worlds and diverse humanity of Jack’s life experiences. In each episode, Jack draws from his own adventures/trials (flashbacks) to explain life to Ishmael on themes that parallel dramas within the hospital. With humour, drama, irony and warmth; Still Life is less about disability than it is about how hard life can be and yet how little it takes to live life fully.

While the main story takes place on one floor in a hospital, Still Life is also about travel and adventure. Jack’s rich life told through flashbacks will take Ishmael to the arctic, bedouin deserts, hong kong’s chaos, Manhattan in the ‘80s and more. Finding a way to make Ishmael ‘feel and taste’ the experiences is one of Jack’s great challenges.

Still Life blends the personal and social dynamics of Grey’s Anatomy and Orange is the new Black; flashback narratives of Westworld; and a healthy dose of The Fall meets Anthony Bourdain in its diversity of cultural immersion/exploration.