Gillian Jacobs Movies

Writer-director Adam Rapp's gritty urban romance Blackbird unfolds in mid-1990s Manhattan. The picture dramatizes the ill-fated courtship between two melancholic heroin addicts - Gulf War veteran Bayliss (Paul Sparks) and ex-stripper Froggy (Gillian Jacobs) - as they fall in love and battle magnetizing addictions. The possibility of redemption waxes strong from time to time, with hope for some semblance of a "normal life" lingering quietly in the background, but Bayliss and Froggy never quite seem to find the strength and control to pull everything together. And in the end, they join one another on a downward spiral that leads inexorably toward mutual self-destruction. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Abducted by two men and forced into child prostitution when she was just eight years old, a homeless San Diego street teen is finally reunited with her family only to find that the traumas of the past may have scarred her for life. Leslie (Ryan Simpkins) was walking to school when her neighbors Alex (Tom Arnold) and Frank (Kevin Zegers) pulled up alongside her and asked for help finding their missing dog. After scouring the neighborhood with the young girl to no avail, the men offer Leslie a ride so she won't be late for school. Along the way, the men tell Leslie that they work for her father. After school, Leslie is surprised to find the two men waiting to drive her home. Claiming that her parents have been called away on urgent business, Alex and Frank coerce Leslie into the car and give her a drink. Later, after dozing off in the backseat, Leslie awakens in a tiny bedroom with eight-year-old Donnie. Like Leslie, Donnie has been drugged and kidnapped. Donnie is led to believe that his parents have sold him for drugs, while Leslie is told that her parents want nothing to do with her anymore. Now, as the two innocent children are forced into prostitution, they use their imaginations to escape into a wondrous world of light where anything is possible.

Years later, Leslie and Donnie are struggling to rebuild their lives on the streets of San Diego. Donnie is deeply in love with Leslie, but Leslie's perception of love has been completely destroyed by her harrowing experience. One day, Leslie walks into a children's shelter and begins the painful process of reconnecting with the past. Though she is soon reunited with her parents, everything is different now, and it gradually becomes apparent that any hope she had for a normal life evaporated the fateful day she placed her trust in two monstrous strangers. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Three Chinese students in New York City find their preconceptions of life in America permanently shattered in this comedy drama from director Shimon Dotan (Hot House, Diamond Dogs). It's the summer of 1980. Chen (Leonardo Nam), Tzu (James Chen), and Wa (Keong Sim) have just arrived in the country when they move into a crowded apartment building and meet their new neighbor -- a friendly graduate student named Dexter (Ryan O'Nan). Up to this point, Tzu, Wa, and Chen have learned everything they ever knew about life in the U.S. by watching endless hours of television. But shortly after meeting Dexter's sometimes-girlfriend Suzanne (Gillian Jacobs) and starving filmmaker Billy (Michael Esper), the newly arrived trio get a rude awakening in the form of a vicious mugging. Meanwhile, relationships get complicated when Suzanne comes on to Chen, and her ex-boyfriend Zap (Peter Scanavino) turns menacing. Convinced that something ominous looms on the horizon following the assassination of John Lennon, the unnerved trio decide that their only hope for personal safety in the city is to buy a handgun. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi