Guest of Honour (2019 film)

An eight year old Veronica is given music lessons by single mother Alicia in her private residence, where she also teaches her son Walter. Around this time, Veronica's mother, Roseangela, became terminally ill, and Veronica's father, Jim, and Alicia began developing a romantic relationship, which was resented by Veronica, as she viewed it as Jim having an affair while Roseangela was still alive. One day, Veronica sees Alicia asleep on a couch with a lit cigarette in her hand, causing a fire that Veronica witnesses, but does not stop, allowing Alicia to burn to death. Veronica and Walter, who performed at recitals together as children, later become romantically involved when they are teenagers, but he later becomes aware of the circumstances regarding his mother's death, causing him to commit suicide. Years later, Mike, a high school bus driver and chaperone, becomes spiteful of student Clive's romantic interest in Veronica (who is now a music teacher) and her rejection of his own advances. Mike then instigates a hoax that leads to Veronica's arrest for seemingly sexually abusing Clive. She enters a plea deal and resists any attempt from Jim to secure her release from prison, with her desire to be imprisoned stemming from the guilt she has over Walter and Alicia's deaths. Jim, a strict health inspector, visits a restaurant owned by Clive's family, and threatens Clive's grandfather with a shutdown unless he is given an opportunity to speak privately with Clive. During a tense conversation, Clive reveals the truth to Jim, and also tells Jim that he knows Veronica felt responsible for Walter's suicide. Later that night, Jim finds out that he is the guest of honour at a private event at an Armenian restaurant named Wild Orchid. An inebriated Jim is then invited to give a speech, where he decides to express his anguish to the unknowing guests regarding Veronica's imprisonment, and his desire to kill Mike, leading to him being interrogated by the police the next day. During the interrogation, Jim notices that the family's pet rabbit Benjamin, who was given to Veronica as a gift when she was nine, has suddenly died in his cage at the improbable age of 16. He returns to Wild Orchid demanding that the staff cut off Benjamin's feet so that he can keep them as good luck charms. Jim tells Veronica in prison that the police are now suspicious of his regular visits because he and Veronica may be plotting to murder Mike. Veronica excitedly asks if this means her sentence will be extended even further, explaining to a bewildered Jim that everything he has done, and everything she saw and endured as a child, is what is wrong with her, but also what is right with her. Veronica, who has since been released, meets with a priest, Father Greg, to discuss funeral arrangements for a recently deceased Jim, including preparing a eulogy, which leads to Veronica recounting her life. Her conversation with Father Greg eventually leads to some closure for her regarding the deaths of Walter and Alicia, as she begins to come to terms with the true nature of Jim's relationship with Alicia and the traumatic incidents which have occurred throughout her life, and she begins to re-frame her perception of them. It is revealed that Veronica's recollection of what was going on between Alicia and Jim was mostly correct, but severely distorted. At Jim's funeral, Father Greg tells a story about having met Jim briefly at Alicia's funeral, and how he told Father Greg about how important she was to Veronica's musical education. Father Greg asks the parishioners in attendance to mourn the deaths of both Jim and Alicia. Veronica, now in possession of the good luck charms made from Benjamin's feet, asks Father Greg to place the charms in the casket with Jim's body after first keeping one for herself and gifting another to Father Greg. A flashback to when Veronica was a music teacher shows her introducing the final piece of music on a program by explaining that it is a tune she wrote during a difficult time in her childhood, which is implied to have been shortly before Alicia's death. ==Cast==