THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING

A pitch-perfect tragicomedy about a down-on-his-luck artist who stumbles upon the perfect scam: form a cult around his mysterious pot-smoking neighbor, Eldrich – outrageously fun and whip-smart!

“ The Answer to Everything is compelling proof that Elyse Friedman is one of Canada's best and most crucial writers. Both cynical and searching, hilarious yet deeply moving, it drew me in from page one.” – Melanie Little, author of The Apprentice's Masterpiece John Aarons, a brilliant but perpetually broke artist, knows how to cadge a meal or seize an opportunity when he spies one. Turned out on the street by his fully-employed, entirely fed up girlfriend, he goes on the hunt for cheap shared accommodation and stumbles upon the ideal set up – a bedroom in the home of Amy, an attractive ps ychology student who has been abandoned by her condo-buying roommate. Not only does Amy have a surprisingly affordable penthouse apartment with rooftop patio and a fridge full of high-quality comestibles, she also has a mysterious, across-the-hall neighbour, Eldrich, who appears to be home all day, smoking weed and receiving an odd assortment of visitors. Before long, John is availing himself of Eldrich's pot, food and wine, and notices that these staples are provided gratis to Eldrich by friends and acquaintances who rely on him for spiritual guidance. That's when John, atheist and misanthrope, decides to start a new-age cult with Eldrich as guru. And so, as half art project, half money-making scheme, The Answer Institute is born. With Amy as a partner in the enterprise, the cult flourishes and grows exponentially, attracting a wide range of broken, strange, spiritually hungry individuals, including an obscenely wealthy Singaporean ex-pat, a psilocybin-dealing hippie, a conservative mom mourning the death of her only child, and the star of a popular sci-fi TV show. But the more successful the Institute gets, the more it spirals out of control. Eldrich begins to embrace his role as Leader with a little too much zeal, and introduces increasingly bizarre rituals to his followers; Amy becomes progressively more enamoured of the funds pouring into the coffers; and John lets sexual jealousy get the better of him. In the end, things go badly awry. With humour, pathos, and razor sharp wit, The Answer To Everything examines the gap between reason and faith, and the human need for connection, love and transcendence. ELYSE FRIEDMAN is the award-winning author of Long Story Short, Waking Beauty, and Then Again. A graduate of the Canadian Film Centre, she has had two feature films produced, and has two films in active development: The Relationship Experiment, directed by Jeremiah Chechik (Benny & Joon, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation ) and A Bright Tragic Thing, directed by Randall Cole (Real Time, 388 Arletta Avenue). You can follow her on Twitter @elysefriedman and visit her on Facebook.