Square Pegs

TAGLINE: Finding out where you don't belong can lead you to where you do.

LOGLINE: When animosities between a pastor and his bartender daughter result in a lawsuit between them, a mediating judge orders them to swap roles for a week before pronouncing judgment.

SUMMARY: Hiram “Mac” McCoy is a single father and pastor, and Jodie McCoy is his bartender daughter. The two had always been close until personal resentments caused Jodie to sue her father for her share of the family house, where Mac lives after the accidental death of his wife, Meredith. So Jodie files a lawsuit for the house to be sold and its proceeds divided between them.

Meredith’s death is their bone of contention, with each blaming the other for what occurred, which was Jodie running out of gas in her car again after having been warned multiple times by her dad not to drive on an empty tank. As before, Jodie called her dad for help as she was stranded on the shoulder of a highway. But Mac was in yet another church meeting, which Jodie claims was always his priority. So Mac called Meredith, who was killed when a delivery truck suffered a blowout and the wheel rim snapped off and struck Meredith.

On their appointed day in court, the two are called into the judge’s chambers, where they break into another argument of back-and-forth shouting, with each defending their own actions before denouncing the other as not knowing what it’s like “to walk in my shoes.” Neither is willing to listen, forgive, or even attempt to understand the other.

So the judge orders them to swap roles for a week. Mac must tend bar and Jody must run the church. At the end of this trial period, the judge says she will issue a decision. Before releasing them, however, she advises them to work this out. “You’ve already experienced enough loss. Don’t let another death divide you … permanently.”