Dana White - The Red Suitcase

"The Red Suitcase is a mother/daughter road movie. Ruth Whitney, a stoic, woman in her mid sixties whose husband unexpectedly abandoned her six years prior, quietly struggles to cope amidst a shattered world of financial and emotional adversity.  Once well-off, with a successful husband and close family, Ruth now lives in a dilapidated summerhouse in rural New Jersey, works a minimum-wage job in a local motel, and clings to her rigid and sometimes comical daily regimen. Meanwhile, her daughter Liz, a phobia-prone late thirty-something, is attempting to finish her PhD. in California, hoping to support both herself and her mother. Worried about her mother’s worsening situation, Liz convinces Ruth to move out west and begin a new life. Ruth agrees, but not without reluctance, as she tacitly carries with her a Red Suitcase full of her estranged husband’s clothes. In a beat-up station wagon filled to the brim, Ruth, Liz and their cat begin an odyssey across America. Full of humorous adventures, colorful characters and dramatic revelations, the trip continually tests Ruth’s wavering resolve to start again."