She Talks to Strangers

Directed by Bruce Sweeney

Leslie is a single woman, approaching middle age, who lives with her best friend in the world, John, an Australian Shepherd. She has a strained relationship with her mother, Staci, with whom she has to bargain with in order to take care of John one afternoon. After hearing some mysterious sounds coming from the basement suite, Leslie discovers that her deadbeat ex-husband, Keith, has moved in "to lie low for a while". Keith refuses to leave until he gets what he feels is owed to him: half the value of the house that he never put a cent into. When he kidnaps John, Leslie is driven to do the unthinkable. It's Staci, drawing from her obsession with true crime podcasts, who cleans up the mess, and helps her daughter get back on her feet.