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Jimmy (HENRY LeBLANC) isn’t really a bad guy. Sure, he has his vices. He likes his drink, and there are the weekly scenarios with women of questionable virtue, but overall, he’s not that bad a guy. In fact, he even went out of his way to help his uncle Hodge (AL ROSSI) who has fallen on desperate times, telling a prospective employer that the older man has held a steady job with his company. It seemed harmless enough a lie, and besides, whom would it hurt?

What Jimmy didn’t take into consideration was that Hodge’s son Andrew (STEVE WILCOX) has his own very personal reasons for not wanting anyone to help his father. And anyone who does is going to be punished. And that includes his cousin Jimmy. Suddenly, Jimmy’s life is turned upside down as Andrew vows retaliation that will leave Jimmy in much the same situation as the uncle he tried to help. Faced with losing his job, Jimmy tries to seek out Andrew and find a way to keep him from destroying his life. In the course of his quest, Jimmy is ultimately confronted with a choice. The action he takes can save his job, but will cost another human being his life, leaving Jimmy to wonder if resilience is the middle ground between adversity and cruelty.

For writer/director Paul Bojack, the visual of a man bringing a woman who was very obviously hired for her “companionship” into a bar became the genesis for the story of Resilience. “Watching him with her made me start to think about the different reasons and situations that might motivate a man into bringing a call girl with him to a bar.”

As the writing process continued, and the story unfolded, Bojack found himself immersed in a bleak world, and the characters that inhabited it weren’t necessarily very likeable. “I don’t feel that all films need to be about people you like,” says Bojack. “With the exception of Roya, I don’t think anyone in this story is remotely likeable. That doesn’t mean they’re not interesting or three-dimensional. I care about my characters because I think they’re doing the best they can with the hands they’ve been dealt. I hope that in keeping them real, and not forcing false attributes on them to make them more palatable, the audience will find them compelling.”

The man who would portray Jimmy, actor Henry LeBlanc, found a character that he did have sympathy for. “My initial thought,” says the actor, “was that Jimmy is all alone, with no one there to help him make ‘good’ decisions. I understand what he’s going through. My belief is that no one is born bad. We’re all basically good, and that’s what I looked for in the character.”

As the production progressed, LeBlanc found that portraying the character of Jimmy was both the most enjoyable, and at the same time, most difficult aspect of the experience. “I loved getting the chance to fully explore a very real character with so many sides to him, who was not always the nicest guy. On the flip side, it was hard to come to the set every day, and maintain that level of despair, confusion, anxiety and desperation throughout the filming, until the character’s final moment of growth at the end of the film.”

For Bojack, the film’s title represents a thread that connects his characters. “Resilience is considered a very positive trait,” he explains, “and we certainly see examples of it in all of our characters, be it Roya, who needs it to survive as a single mother, or Andrew, tormented by the emotional scars inflicted by his father. But I think you can also use resilience to rationalize some very deplorable behavior. When Jimmy finds himself under attack from Andrew, he’s willing to do whatever it takes to hold on to what he has. That kind of tenacity, or resilience, if you will, can also take the shape of something both callous and ruthless.”