Down in the Valley

A romance between a teenage girl and a thirtysomething drifter takes the young woman down a dangerous and unexpected path in this independent drama. Tobe (Evan Rachel Wood) is a pretty 18-year-old whose father, Wade (David Morse), is the sheriff of a town in California's San Fernando Valley. Tobe is driving to the beach with some friends when she stops at a filling station and meets gas jockey Harlan (Edward Norton), who dresses like a cowpoke and claims to have recently relocated to Los Angeles from South Dakota. Harlan is immediately and obviously taken with Tobe, and when she asks him to tag along for the day, he impulsively quits his job to follow her. Tobe and Harlan soon become a couple, but Wade is convinced Harlan is not all he claims to be, and Tobe begins to wonder if her father might be right when Harlan takes her horseback riding and their date is cut short after police inform them the horses have been stolen from an rancher (Bruce Dern) whom Harlan claims is a friend - and who promptly turns up with a gun to confront both of them, insisting that he has never seen Harlan before. Tobe's suspicions grow when Harlan offers to teach her little brother, Lonnie (Rory Culkin), how to shoot using a pair of real .45 revolvers, as his actions become less charming and more worrisome. Leading man Edward Norton also served as producer on this project.