Ilie Ruby's "The Language of Trees," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: The Language of Trees by Ilie Ruby.

The entry begins:

The Language of Trees is a mystery-love story filled with restless spirits, both living and not. Woven with magical realism and Seneca Indian folklore, the story takes place in the sprawling lake region of Canandaigua, NY, once the site of battles that were fought there, now the site of battles of a different kind—those of love, forgiveness, and addiction. As the story goes, a little boy, Luke Ellis, disappears in the lake on a rainy night, and neither of his sisters, Melanie or Maya, can explain it though they were with him. The mystery is never solved. Over a decade later, Melanie, now a teenager, goes missing, leaving her infant son. Townspeople isolated by years of secrets and old lovers separated by guilt and grief come together in the frantic search to save her, only to discover a world where nature and the spiritual realm intertwine, nothing is as it seems, and the past refuses to stay where it belongs.

Frantic that the past is repeating itself, Grant Shongo, a Seneca healer, who has turned his back on his legacy, and the woman who left him years ago, his childhood love, Echo O’Connell, find themselves drawn into the search with the help of a restless spirit. Echo has returned after all this time to put the past to rest with a secret of her own.

My characters are ordinary folks who have fallen prey to tragedy and adversity, but who are capable of extraordinary things when put to the test. They are rarely beautiful, uncommonly wise, though this doesn’t stop anyone from falling in love with them, nor does it stop them from making very human choices—some that could wreck a life. They have let true loves slip away, they have let themselves become isolated by fear, they have made excuses for themselves—until this moment when everyone is called to action to prevent the past from repeating itself and bring Melanie Ellis home. I like the idea that one of my main characters, Leila Ellis, forgoes her usual raggedy attire and in a definitive act of dignity and self-preservation dons her once-worn suit and high heels before getting in the car to drive the streets of Canandaigua all night looking for her runaway teenage daughter. I love the idea that Melanie, her daughter, has just gotten herself clean for a cause: her infant son, and though she has not lost her edge or her temptation, she will do anything she can to be strong for him, even it means doing the hardest thing of all: forgiving herself for what happened to her brother all those years ago.

Here’s the cast of characters, and those I imagine would play them:

Joseph O’Connell: a former priest, wisdom keeper of the story, who maintains his belief in the goodness of the human spirit though he’s been given every reason not to. Let Morgan Freeman play him. What...[read on]

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The Page 69 Test: The Language of Trees.

My Book, The Movie: The Language of Trees.

--Marshal Zeringue