The Hottest State

When William meets Sarah at a bar appropriately called the "Bitter End", he is almost 21 and about to act in his first movie. He is so used to getting what he wants that he has never been able to care deeply for anyone. But all of that is about to change. It is Sarah who will become William's undoing and his salvation. An affair with her will take William from a tenement on the Lower East Side to a hotel room in Mexico, from a hurried proposal of marriage to the extremities of need and the wisdom that comes only to true survivors. "The hero is a young actor from Texas, arriving in New York, without any real sense of authenticity or identity; which was exactly where I was 15 years ago when I first started writing my novel. My hope was that, with a little bit of time, I could better understand the themes of this story and make an honest personal film." Ethan Hawke (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)