Reunion

Twenty-five years ago, in a small city in Massachusetts, three teenage boys ran wild. Best friends Mitch, Peter and Max drank, played their music loud and made trouble while trying to survive high school, their families and the demands of the conservative working-class community in which they grew up. Max was the leader, the boldest and most ruthless; Mitch was Max’s right-hand; and Peter—Peter was the third wheel and the butt of their jokes. After a harrowing graduation night, the threesome grew up and grew apart. But tonight—the night of their high-school reunion, exactly 25 years since graduation—Mitch is getting the gang back together to celebrate and recreate the wildness of their teenage years. Time has changed them—Peter is doughy and domesticated, still eager for his friends’ acceptance; Mitchell is an eccentric, loquacious loner, hungry for reconnection; and Max, now a reformed alcoholic, recently divorced, is wounded and secretive, seeking forgiveness from his friends for past bad behavior and trying to distance himself from the kid he once was. Max struggles to make an early exit, but the familiar comfort of old friends and Mitch’s persuasion win him over, opening the door to a night of exhilarating intoxication, celebration, risky behavior and a reconnection with the reckless freedom of youth. But as morning encroaches, secrets are revealed, and all three men find that the past can be a dangerous place to return to, and their memories of youth and bonding are troubled and complicated by adulthood, leading ultimately to a long overdue atonement. A darkly comic drama, Reunion explores the risks and pleasures of revisiting the past, examines the precariousness of male identity and reveals the fraught and dangerous aspects of male bonding.