Voodoo and the Mime

A new high school student, who mimes to cover up his inability to speak, forges an unlikely bond with a streetwise drug peddler when their English teacher pairs them for a writing assignment. The two soon make their lunch table a hip group for socially marginalized students, but can their utopian experiment prevent a shy, gun-toting teen from seeking revenge for being bullied?

Even for Baltimore’s Patterson High, it’s unusual to see a starting senior in white face, dressed as a mime. No one’s prepared for this remarkable young Australian who cannot speak, but has no special needs listed on his record.

After he loses his paperwork in a hallway scuffle while defending a shy kid from being bullied by the football jocks, his fellow students and the teachers give him a moniker that sticks, “Mime.”

In the cafeteria, Mime finds every table full except one with a lone occupant, a drug peddler in dreadlocks with a street name of “Voodoo.” Mime pulls up a chair, but Voodoo tells him the table is his “candy store,” a place for selling his illicit wares. He kicks Mime’s chair out from under him, but finds him still poised in midair, continuing to eat his lunch.

Later, Mime’s English teacher asks her class to pair up and visit their partner’s homes, so they can write an essay about their experiences. After everyone flocks to their best friend, Mime and Voodoo are stuck with each other.

During a weekend stay, Voodoo learns from Mime’s Australian mother how he led his football team to the state finals last year at a nearby high school, and how Mime lost his voice the day his father, a detective for the Baltimore Police, was gunned down in the line of duty by a drug dealer. The next day they take Voodoo to the local supermarket to apply for a job.

When Mime visits Voodoo’s dilapidated home, he discovers from his grandmother how her son, Voodoo’s father, gambled and drank himself into an early grave after his wife abandoned the family. Voodoo must help support his grandmother and twin sisters after his older brother was sent to prison for robbing 7-Eleven stores out of desperation. On Sunday, Mime joins the family at a gospel meeting and is anointed by the pastor.

Mime is convinced by a pretty blonde to perform his routines for the cheerleading squad, and they introduce Voodoo to a cute African American girl in the school band.

Soon, the lunchtime “candy store” table grows in numbers, as the four of them befriend other students from all rungs of the social ladder. Even the school’s popular quarterback joins them, after Mime introduces him to his Kung Fu/mime instructor and helps him win the Homecoming football game.

Mime and the group begin to break down the conventional social order and celebrate people’s differences, when their Shangri-La is disrupted by a mass shooting at school. Amid the horror, death and trauma, Mime, having been saved by Voodoo, must regain his voice, both physical and political, to lead his fellow students in protest against the availability of assault rifles and the lack of mental health services that plague our modern schools.