There’s beauty in the darkness of life, and Milan Sachs isn’t afraid to show it. ‘The Other Side of the White Line’ is a punk queer drama that spits in the face of sentimentality and offers something far more defiant: truth.
Jag (Dakotah Cosgrove) and Andi (played by Sachs ) are queer drug dealers who visit the home of an addict for a deal – Rooney (Alec Wirth), twitchy and volatile, holed up in a cluttered mess of a house with his 17-year-old daughter, Trixie (Remy Rosenberg). At first glance, it’s just another drop. But something’s off. Rooney’s tone with Trixie is cold, cutting. She drifts into the room dressed to please, performing for approval she’ll never get. Then the mood curdles. His cruelty erupts without warning – shocking, abusive, and suddenly very real.
So they take her. Not with a plan, not out of some savior instinct – more like a gut reaction, a jolt of empathy from two people who know what it’s like to be left behind. What follows is a loose, drug-fogged trip with no map and no promises. Trixie, pregnant and unraveling, isn’t saved – she’s simply relocated. Among misfits who might not have their lives together, but at least don’t weaponize love.
Sachs writes with a sharp, unflinching instinct. The dialogue is raw and honest, never showy, always deeply rooted in the lived experience of its characters. Sweitzer’s cinematography captures both the grit and the fleeting beauty of their world, weaving together a vision that hums with a kind of beautiful ugliness.
It’s a coming-of-age story, but one that doesn’t follow the tidy paths of healing arcs or tidy resolutions. ‘The Other Side of the White Line’ is for those who grow up sideways, fighting not for closure but for survival. Brash, tragic, and steeped in defiance, Milan Sachs’ film refuses to clean up the chaos. Instead, it plunges you into a world where survival itself is the triumph – where growth isn’t the point and blooming is never guaranteed.
The performances are solid and believable, each actor fully inhabiting the gritty, desperate reality of their roles. Every line, every gesture feels earned, grounded in the harsh truth of their circumstances. By the time the film ends, you’re left with no sense of resolution, but something far more potent – a raw, lingering truth that survival, in all its messy forms, is the closest we come to triumph.
