The Ballad of Jack and Rose

In 1986, engineer-by-trade Jack Slavin and his mid-teen daughter Rose live in virtual isolation on what was once a commune that Jack and a group of others built in 1968 on sparsely-populated Marsh Island off the U.S. East Coast. Rose's mother abandoned them when Rose was five. Jack has passed to Rose a sense of ecological preservation, placing them at odds with Marty Rance, who is building a housing complex on the island on a wetlands. They are able to live this life on the commune property in their ecological bliss because of a sizable inheritance; whatever problem Jack faces, he takes out his checkbook to solve it. He also took Rose out of school when she was 11 because he didn't believe in what the traditional school system was teaching. Their quiet life together is threatened by the fact that Jack has a heart condition which will probably kill him sooner than later. Wanting to ensure that Rose is taken care of after his passing, Jack makes the unilateral decision to ask Kathleen, a woman he has been dating for four months, to move in, along with her two mismatched sons Rodney and Thaddius, half-brothers who don't much like each other. Jack tries to pass off Kathleen and her sons to Rose as "guests" and "an experiment", rather than stating straight out that they are moving in.Kathleen, who had never met Rose before, agreed in her savior complex and in truly loving Jack, knowing fully the reasons that he asked her. These changes deeply affect Rose, who has had Jack all to herself for the better part of her life. After Jack dies she threatens to commit suicide, and comes to a key point in her life of just starting to explore her sexuality.