Ten Thousand Saints

## Gallery

**Ten Thousand Saints** is a 2015 American drama film written and directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini. It is based on the novel of the same name by Eleanor Henderson. The film stars Asa Butterfield as Jude Keffy-Horn, the protagonist of the story. The film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2015.

The film was released in a limited release and through video on demand on August 14, 2015 by Screen Media Films.

## Plot

Sixteen-year-old Jude Keffy-Horn (Asa Butterfield) is living in Vermont with his adoptive mother Harriet (Julianne Nicholson) and adoptive sister Prudence (Nadia Alexander). In December 1987, Jude and his best friend, Teddy (Avan Jogia), spend their time doing drugs and dreaming about moving to New York City to escape their small home town. Jude’s father, Les (Ethan Hawke), lives in New York City where he sells drugs. Les' girlfriend Diane (Emily Mortimer) has a daughter Eliza (Hailee Steinfeld) who buses to Vermont for New Year's Eve. Teddy and Jude meet Eliza at the bus station and take her to a New Year's Eve party. Jude is beat up outside the party, while Teddy and Eliza talk, do drugs, and have sex in a locked bathroom. Teddy asks Eliza to find his straight edge brother in New York City and check on him. Eliza heads back to NYC on the bus while Teddy and Jude head home, stopping to huff Freon. When Harriet awakens she finds Jude unconscious and Teddy dead.

Eliza finds Teddy’s half-brother in Alphabet City, Johnny (Emile Hirsch), and discovers he is straight edge and Krishna. She tells him to call home because Teddy is worried. When he calls, his drug addict mom answers and tells him about Teddy's death.

Eliza discovers she's pregnant with Teddy's baby, and when she tells Johnny and Jude, they decide to keep it a secret. Johnny eventually proposes that they tell her parents that the baby is his and that they get married. They borrow Les' van, and take Eliza to stay with Harriet while Johnny's band goes on tour with Jude as the new guitar player when Rooster, the original guitar player, quits. They come back from tour, and Johnny goes back to New York City, leaving Eliza feeling abandoned. Jude and Eliza start a relationship.

Jude and Eliza take a bus back to New York where they plan to raise the baby. Johnny tells Eliza that he's been in communication with Teddy's biological father, and that he wants the baby to be given to Teddy's father. Eliza is outraged and runs out of the apartment into the middle of the Tompkins Square Park Riots, where she goes into labor. She wanted Jude to hold her baby boy because she didn't felt like holding it in front of a lot of people and is really annoyed by everyone. As the film ends, Johnny throws Teddy’s ashes into the river with Rooster, while Jude narrates from ten years later about how Eliza is in Brooklyn starting her own family and how he too is going to be a father.

## Cast

* Asa Butterfield as Jude Keffy-Horn
* Avan Jogia as Teddy
* Hailee Steinfeld as Eliza
* Ethan Hawke as Les
* Emile Hirsch as Johnny
* Julianne Nicholson as Harriet
* Emily Mortimer as Di
* Nadia Alexander as Prudence
* Claudio Encarnacion Montero as Jude's neighbor