before you leave

Before You Leave is an intimate exploration of the trauma that comes with war, how it lingers in those who fought it, and how it seeps into everyone connected to them. The film considers the moral weight carried by soldiers long after the fighting ends, and the near-impossible task of returning to a society that has never truly tried to understand them.
 

Dusty is a Vietnam War veteran, terminally ill and still haunted by the war he never really left behind. With his time running out, he reaches out to Rose, a down-on-her-luck social worker, and asks for her help getting his affairs, and his life, in order.

What begins as a simple arrangement becomes something far more complicated. Rose is drawn in by Dusty's guardedness and the secrets he refuses to explain; Dusty finds himself wanting more from their time together than he ever expected to need. As her curiosity pushes against his stubborn silence, both are forced to confront the things they've spent years avoiding, at the risk of losing each other before they've really had the chance to connect.

A quiet, devastating story about what we owe the people we've hurt, and how far we'll go for one last chance at redemption.