Build a movie plot around this: Who is Grace's best friend? Toot.
A:
Beth left her small town and, despite her parents' disapproval, married Jake "the Muss" Heke. After 18 years they live in an unkempt state house in an unnamed New Zealand city and have five children. Their interpretations of life and being Maori are tested. Their eldest daughter, Grace, keeps a journal in which she chronicles events as well as stories she tells her younger siblings.Jake is fired from his job and is satisfied with receiving unemployment benefit, spending most days getting drunk at the local pub with his friends, singing songs, and savagely beating any patron he considers to have stepped out of line. He often invites crowds of friends from the bar to his home for drunken parties. When his wife "gets lippy" at one of his parties, he brutally attacks her in front of their friends. Beth turns to drink when things go wrong, and has angry outbursts and occasional violence of her own, on a much smaller scale. Her children fend for themselves, resignedly cleaning the blood-streaked house after their father has beat their mother.Nig, the Hekes' eldest son, moves out to join a gang whose rituals include getting facial tattoos (in Maori culture called ta moko). He is subjected to an initiation beating by the gang members but is then embraced as a new brother, and he later sports the gang's tattoos. Nig cares about his siblings but despises his father. He is angered when his mother is beaten but deals with it by walking away.The second son, Mark "Boogie" Heke, has a history of minor criminal offences; he is taken from his family and placed in a foster home as a ward of the state due to his parents' home life. Despite his initial anger, Boogie finds a new niche for himself, as the foster home's manager Mr. Bennett helps him embrace his Maori heritage. Jake does not care that Boogie was taken away; he comments that it will do him some good, toughen him up a bit. Beth is heartbroken and scrapes money together to visit him. Jake pays for the rental car from gambling winnings but deserts the family...