The Mao Game

It opens with a card game. Played between Jordan's mother and grandmother, the game is called 'The Mao, ' and, like the adult world in which he is prematurely thrust, the rules seem arbitrary and the stakes staggeringly high -- whoever wins the game wins custody of him. So begins this 15-year-old child actor's odyssey through the temptations of Hollywood and the emotional minefield of his family'; s life. As the story unfolds, we learn that Jordan's father has molested him throughout his childhood and that his mother, a narcissistic woman immersed in her acting career, has little interest in him. The only stable force in his life is his grandmother, a remarkable woman with whom Jordan shares everything from dances to drugs to his innermost confidences; a woman who is slowly dying. Heart-wrenching and highly cinematic, "The Mao Game" sheds light on both the fragile vulnerability and the remarkable resilience of the human spirit. An unmistakably modern coming-of-age story.