The Last Run(2004)

Over time, Steven’s (Fred Savage) “last run” causes him to turn into a serious sex addict, and this in turn causes his life to go down the toilet: He loses his accountant job, squanders virtually every dollar he has (since most of the women he sleeps with are prostitutes), and gets reduced to living in a rattrap apartment. One night, his friends Jack (Steven Pasquale) and Clancy (Vyto Ruginis) track him down to his apartment and see first-hand how his “last run” is ruining his life, and they firmly tell him that it is ending right now. As a means of bringing back some semblance of normalcy into his life, they immediately call up Amelia (Erinn Bartlett) – a schoolteacher and former high school classmate of his that he felt a good connection with but hadn’t been speaking to for weeks – for him, and they make him talk to her so he can start seeing her again.

As time goes by, Steven and Amelia grow closer and closer without getting physical, and the sex-fueled fog in Steven’s head starts to clear up. On Valentine’s Day, Steven and Amelia have dinner at a restaurant to celebrate, and during their meal, Amelia tells Steven that she is ready to consummate their relationship. However, he feels uncertain about doing that. Just then, he spots a prostitute across the room that he had a past sexual encounter with, and when he sees her excusing herself from her date to use the restroom, his old urges overtake him and he excuses himself from Amelia to go after her. He winds up having a quickie with this woman, but afterward, he finds himself bitterly regretting it. When he returns to Amelia, he soon confesses with much shame that he is a sex addict and that he just had sex with a prostitute moments ago, then he tells her that he can’t be with her anymore. Heartbroken, Amelia slaps him and leaves.

Some days later, a sullen Steven goes to the church where Jack is getting married to Alexis (Amy Adams), and shortly before the start of the ceremony, he hangs out with Jack in a private room. Jack voices his frustrations over how he is going through with this wedding despite not liking anything about Alexis or her family, as well as how he considers himself to be a sell-out because he is marrying her only for her wealth, plus he is frustrated that no one cares about his feelings on either of these matters. When he hands Steven the wedding ring that he is going to give to Alexis, Steven snaps at him, cursing him for advising him to go on the “last run” in the first place and then cursing himself for having listened to this advice. He tells Jack that he makes himself sick, and that Amelia was the best thing that ever happened to him and he couldn’t stop himself from messing it up, and he states that he can no longer stand these negative feelings eating away at him and that he plans to do something about it. However, Jack doesn’t really care, and just as the ceremony starts, Steven refuses to serve as his best man, so he takes the ring and heads for the altar, leaving Steven alone in the room.

Steven enrolls in a sex addiction therapy group, and one day, he decides to pay Amelia a visit at the school she works at just after classes have ended for the day. He finds her in her classroom and pleads with her to give him a second chance, telling her that he wants them to be together. However, she isn’t interested in anything that he has to say and soon orders him to get out. He complies, but then he finds her foul-mouthed student Derek (Shawn McGill) – whom he got acquainted with once before – sitting outside the principal’s office, and he has a conversation with him over how he hurt Amelia. Derek eventually tells him that Amelia always says that, if someone says they’re sorry, you should accept their apology and give them another chance, and Steven replies that he never actually did say “sorry” to Amelia. Derek tells him that he needs to go back to her and say that, and then pray that she trusts him again.

Steven heads back to Amelia and apologizes to her, then tells her that he isn’t asking her to forget everything that has happened; all he is asking is for her to trust him enough to open her door for him just a little bit. He then states that he would rather die than hurt her again, and he doesn’t want to live in a world where there isn’t even a hope for a future between them. He lastly explains that, when he is around her, he knows who he is, and that’s the person he wants to be, and she knows who she is when she is around him, and that’s the person that he wants to be with. She replies to all of this by remarking how the best thing about seeing the world through the eyes of a nine-year-old is that anything seems possible and that happy endings are right around the corner, but when you grow up, you find out that that’s not how the real world works. He responds by telling her that when you grow up, you can still have a happy ending, but it’s a version where there is some pain and difficulty along the way, and you have to be ready and willing to earn it (like he is). She tells him to have a seat while she finishes grading some homework, implying that she will reconcile with him.