Synopsis
Ethan and Ruth Yeager are a young farming couple with one big dream: to find the antidote to their daughter Mary Jane’s life-threatening seizure disorder. They better act fast. They’ve spent their life savings on failed medicinal hopes for the eight-year-old girl, and The State is about to foreclose on their farm.
Mary Jane spends most of her day in and out of a drug-induced haze. She bonds with her quirky dad over comic books and role playing superheroes flying through the sky. Ethan dubs her “The Super Awesome,” a moniker mom is less fond of due to her analytical background. They’re a hard-working, God fearing family, but the task of caring for a sick child has left them at odds with each other. It hardly helps that Mary Jane’s tiny bed is permanently parked next to the marital bed. Frustrations are running high.
When another massive seizure sends Mary Jane to the hospital Dr. Gardner informs the young couple it’s best they go home and enjoy their daughter while they can. The doctor offers them one last corporate medication to try. Ruth reminds Dr. Gardner that it’s Big Pharma that put her baby in a zombie-like state, and yet the seizures persist. The family leaves the hospital devastated, but Ruth isn’t ready to quit. She’s a tough, ambitious problem solver who had her PhD in botany cut short to have the baby she loves. Nothing will stop her.
Ethan returns home from a local brewery after confiding in a friend to find Ruth surrounded by stacks of books and research material, scrambling for an alternative to prescription drugs. She thinks she found one. She introduces Ethan to the scientific research of Dr. Peter Venkman, a former professor of plant-based medical science who vanished from public life.
However, like some sort of mad, 21st-century scientist, the doctor is still posting his research online. His work embraces the positive effects of CBD extracted from cannabis on seizures patients. Ethan’s old school, Christian upbringing moves him to reject using “street drugs” on their child. Ruth reminds him of the poisons already being flooded into Mary Jane’s helpless little body. She goes over the research on the cannabis plant, assuring Ethan that CBD has no psychoactive effects. She thinks she can make the CBD oil similar to Dr. Venkman’s research to test on Mary Jane. Ethan still isn’t convinced. He wants a professional opinion from Dr. Gardner, who shares what he knows about cannabis and its medical applications.
Ethan becomes willing to give it a try. However, after the family leave the hospital Dr. Gardner tells Nurse Sally, a member of the Yeagers’ local Church, that they’re planning to treat their daughter with marijuana. A single, busy-body phone call sets in motion a clash that puts the Yeagers in the crosshairs of the Church, the State of Tennessee and local police.
The couple takes its first healing steps while setting up Ruth’s kitchen lab to synthesize the plant. Picture a big mess of crock pots, glass flask, cookware, olive oil and moon shine, but something is missing. They have no cannabis. Ethan discovers the odd world of cannabis by visiting a shady mobile dispensary, run out of the back of a van in Nashville. Ruth does her best to copy the recipe for the CBD oil as outlined by Dr. Venkman, but it fails to offer Marry Jane any relief. They must find Dr. Venkman and get his help, but no one knows where he is.
That is until they come across a college student who admits to renting his cabin in the woods to Dr. Venkman for him to hide out. But hide out from what, from whom? Ruth heads for the hills to convince Dr. Venkman to help them, but that won’t be easy. He’s a man who has pain and sorrows of his own. When Ruth finds him he’s literally singing the blues. Dr. Venkman is intrigued by the young woman’s passion for his work. He’s a broken man of science in need of a spiritual connection. After much convincing and a change of heart Venkman agrees to try and help create an antidote for Mary Jane. In an old barn Dr. Venkman, with Ruth as his apprentice, build a Frankenstein-like laboratory to synthesis a special form of CBD taken from a rare strain of cannabis. After an exhausting 24 hours an antidote is created. But will it work?
Just as Dr. Venkman is about to administer a dose to Mary Jane mid-seizure, local police arrive at the farm with town folk and Child Protective Services in tow. A huge, chaotic chase ensues across the farm, allowing Ethan to finally play the hero for his sick daughter. Escaping the storm of action he rushes to Mary Jane, who’s strapped into a jogger carriage, a possible antidote in hand. It’s there that Ethan administers the CBD antidote to Mary Jane in the midst of another massive seizure. Before he can see if it worked he’s dragged away by the police. The crowd notices that the jogger with Mary Jane in it is violently shaking. Ruth rushes to her daughter’s side when something miraculous happens. Mary Jane climbs out of the jogger on her own and waves to the crowd.
Six months later Ethan has a new crop to harvest; tall, beautiful hemp plants. Ruth has opened her own roadside store named Super Awesome CBD creams, oils, teas and more. Sally arrives at the roadside store to make things right with Ruth and get CBD products for Church members in pain. She’s greeted by a happy Mary Jane Yeager dressed in a superhero outfit. And, when no one is looking, Mary Jane literally takes to the sky, her cape waving majestically in the breeze.
“Cannabis is just too healthy for a sick healthcare system .” ― Sebastian Marincolo
Why this film?
I’ll never forget the rage I felt when my cancer-stricken sister wasn’t allowed to use CBD as an alternative treatment. I flew her to my state and treated her with CBD that calmed her mind, increased her appetite and made taking her pain meds tolerable. It didn't save her life, but it made her passing more humane. My sister flew with a large bottle of opioids that ultimately killed her. Compared with opioids, CBD oil seems benign.
If we can eliminate social, historical, religious and government-induced perceptions of cannabis (CBD), then we can better educate the public on the positive and proper use of this God given plant. The Super Awesome does just that.
The Stories Insperation
The doctors were out of ideas to help 5-year-old Charlotte Figi. Suffering from Dravet Syndrome, she had as many as 300 grand mal seizures a week, used a wheelchair, went into repeated cardiac arrest and could barely speak.
As a last resort, Charlotte's mother searched for CBD oil as a treatment for her daughter. The girl began taking oil from the cannabis plant, "Hippie’s Disappointment," which contained low THC levels and high CBD content. Charlotte experienced an immediate reduction in her epileptic seizures, down from 300 a week to two or three per month.
Two years later, Charlotte was largely seizure-free and able to walk, talk and feed herself after taking oil infused with a special CBD strain. Her recovery has inspired a name for the strain of cannabis she took that is bred not to make users high _ Charlotte's Web.
Sadly, after years of being seizure free Charlotte passed away at age 13 in April 2020 from cardiac arrest. This film is inspired by little girls like Charlotte and grown women like my late sister, Bonnie.
The Film
