Plot Summary for
Tattered Angel (2002)

No matter how hard you run from the past, it has a way of catching up with you. No one knows this better than 35-year-old Vince, back in his hometown of Van Wert, Ohio, after a 13-year absence. He has come back to visit his mother's grave (somehow he missed her funeral by just one day); but instead he finds himself in an all too familiar place, a bar. The people in this bar are also familiar. Vince runs into Julie, an old friend of the family, who teaches art at the local elementary school. At first this encounter with his past is pleasant until Julie's ex-boyfriend Ben shows up. Ben has a way of making trouble for Julie. He is a cop, and chances are he's going to make some trouble for Vince too. Vince finally arrives at the cemetery the following day. A very hung-over Julie is also there, on a field trip with her art class. It seems that Vince's sister, Sara, has shown up too, about 22 years after she was abducted and murdered. Vince's flood of memories about Sara's disappearance is brought on when he happens upon 10-year-old Ellen, one of Julie's students. Still suffering from her hangover, Julie doesn't realize that Ellen is missing when the school bus leaves the cemetery. Suffering from his flashbacks, Vince doesn't realize that Ellen has also disappeared from the cemetery, right before his eyes. The entire town begins to look for Ellen when she fails to appear at home that night. And eventually some eyes turn toward the drifter, Vince. Making matters worse, Vince is having trouble discerning reality from memory. He is at a loss to describe what he may have seen to the police, to Ellen's mother, to himself. As he spirals into a series of hallucinations, the line between his sister's death and Ellen's disappearance blurs. Only through his recurring dreams of Sara and Ellen can he begin to separate the past from the present, and piece together what may have happened in the cemetery. With nothing to go on but his dreams and gut instinct, Vince launches into his own search for Ellen...or is he really searching for Sara? Years of guilt and sorrow tumble over each other as Vince struggles to retain his sanity and understand who it is he is hoping to find alive. "Tattered Angel" is a story of pain and triumph. It is a story about redemption. It is a story about finding yourself when you didn't even know you were looking.

Summary written by Anonymous

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