(1998)

Submitted by Tornado Dragon

While Serena (Alicia Witt) and Jennifer (Amy Locane) are at a party hosted by rock singer Fenton (Eric Mabius), Serena’s miserable life in New York hits a new low when Fenton gets her hammered on drugs and alcohol and rapes her before she passes out. When she regains consciousness later on and Jennifer finds her looking shaken and slightly disheveled, she tells Jennifer that nothing had happened. As they walk back to Jennifer’s hotel room, Serena steps inside a church to use a toilet while Jennifer opts to wait outside, but after Serena is done, she sits in one of the church’s pews and cries, having quietly accepted that she has fallen flat on her butt in this city, just like David (Luke Wilson) warned her she would. The next day, Serena tells Jennifer that she wants to return to Portland with her, but then asks her if she will lend her the money for a plane ticket. Though Jennifer soon agrees to do so, this sparks an argument between them that lasts the entire trip back to Portland, during which Jennifer levels with Serena and tells her that, while she is not a wholly bad person, she is tremendously insecure, which is why she chases after losers like Tommy (Jamie Kennedy) (which was what brought her to New York to begin with), treats life like a scam and manipulates others, and puts on these façades like everything is cool whenever things aren’t going the way she wants them to.

Amidst Serena’s troubles, David goes on a two-day “business” trip with Mary (Brittany Murphy) to see his supplier Devlin (Jack Black) so he can get more marijuana to sell, partake in some camping, and get high on acid with Devlin and his friends. Though he gets his marijuana, he finds the trip to be overall unpleasant, especially since Mary develops an attraction to Devlin. The next morning, Mary drops David off at the home of his friends Robert (Jeremy Sisto) and Tony (Andy Dick), during which Jennifer is visiting them, and David clearly shows that whatever attraction he had towards Mary has faded away. That night, Serena calls Tony from Jennifer’s house asking where David is, but he says he doesn’t know, and moments later, David and Jennifer come in the front door and start making out, forcing Serena to flee out of a window so he doesn’t see her. She is later shown sitting in a coffee shop and thinking about David, and David is shown looking agitated and conflicted after he finishes having sex with Jennifer.

The next morning, David goes back to Robert and Tony’s house, and after they tell him that they are holding a party that night, he finds out that Serena is back in town and had spent the night with them, and she knows of his sexual tryst with Jennifer. When the party is in full swing, David makes an appearance there, and he asks Robert and Tony if Serena showed up. They reply that she hadn’t, but she earlier told them she was going back to San Francisco to rediscover multimedia and had left no forwarding address. David decides to leave, but before he reaches the exit, cops show up to conduct a raid. He makes a break for the rooftop, and upon reaching it, he finds Serena up there stargazing.

The two of them get to talking, and he asks her if she has come back to stay, and she answers that she isn’t sure; Portland makes her nervous because she thinks that life here is too easy and lacks the things that draws her to big city life, saying that people here aren’t tense enough. He tells her that she makes him tense, and she asks if that is why he screwed Jennifer, to which he replies that that just presented itself. He was over her now, though, as well as Mary, and also states that he has had it with both dealing and smoking marijuana and the people he has associated himself with because of it, and says that the fire that destroyed his house helped him to realize how much of a waste of life that all was. She tearfully tells him that the fire was her fault, and admits that she enjoyed watching his house burn at the time, but David replies that none of that matters anymore. They then start kissing until they hear strange whirring noises and get illuminated by a blue light coming from above, and they look up and see a small UFO hovering over their heads, delighting Serena because this has been her (supposed) third alien encounter in her life and David’s first. Their enjoyment of the sight is ended moments later when two cops get their attention from afar. They rush back down the stairwell to escape them while the UFO flies away, and the cops decide to not bother with catching them.