Ivan Cohen grows up in Palo Alto, a city that frames his early years with a quiet sense of distance. His home life is split between his mother, who is a Russian immigrant, and a American step-father who struggles to form any real connection with him. From the start, Ivan feels unseen beyond the surface markers people notice: his blonde hair, pale skin, and the Russian army jacket that once belonged to his father. These details seem to define him more than any attempts at warmth or understanding, leaving him with a lingering sense of dissatisfaction about his childhood.
As he enters adolescence, Ivan drifts into a small circle of working-class slackers. He stands more as a follower than a leader within the group, though a tentative bond begins to form with a girl named Nina. A thread of jealousy runs through his relationship with another friend, Alex, who is dating a pretty girl named Kelly. This trio remains tangled in high school life, with Ivan observing the couple and feeling both drawn to and resentful of their closeness.
One night, after the group experiments with acid, a minor car incident shakes him. A caring yet cautious teacher, Mr. Wyckoff, notices Ivan’s struggles and reaches out, hoping to coax him toward opening up. Ivan resists at first, but a suggested writing assignment becomes a beacon of possibility. He crafts a fantasy about life after high school in San Francisco—a future that looks modest and perhaps limiting, yet somehow forms a genuine horizon that he clings to as a form of escape and aspiration.
High school parties become a crucible where Ivan’s inner turmoil comes to a head. At the end-of-year gathering, he finds Nina and is met with an offhand joke about a future that could include him in a bank-robbing, mansion-dwelling life with her, a notion that briefly rekindles his hope. He attempts to kiss Nina, only to be gently rebuffed; she insists their friendship remains firmly in place. The night becomes more harrowing when he stumbles upon a bedroom scene where two people are having sex and another room where someone is passed out in vomit. The chaos unsettles him, and in a moment of escalating anger he heads downstairs for alcohol, is accused of stealing it, and is punched by a fellow teen.
The culmination of these pressures drives Ivan to a desperate act. He returns home, grabs his step-father’s hunting rifle, and drives back to the party intent on releasing his fury. Yet when he arrives, the house is quiet except for a few passed-out kids, and there is no one to confront or confront him in the way he expects. He slips back home, entering his parents’ bedroom where they sleep, wrestling with the impulse to kill his step-father. In the end, nerves fail him, and the act never occurs.
The film closes with a stark image that lingers: Ivan stands on the Golden Gate Bridge, looking out over the expanse, and leaves his father’s jacket behind on the bridge. The gesture captures the weight of his unresolved anger, the distance he feels from his family, and the uncertain path that lies ahead beyond the safety of his familiar surroundings.
