The Paperboy
Anita (Macy Gray), the chain smoking black maid of the Jansen family, recounts to an unseen reporter the events of the summer of 1969, when idealistic reporter Ward Jansen (Matthew McConaughey) came back to his fictional hometown of Lately in Moat County, Florida, to investigate the events surrounding a murder in an effort to exonerate a man on death row, Hillary Van Wetter (John Cusack). In 1965, swamp-dwelling alligator hunter and small-time criminal Van Wetter has been jailed for the murder of a violent and unscrupulous local sheriff, Thurmond Call. Four years later, Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman), a woman from Mobile, Alabama whom Van Wetter has never met but who has fallen in love with him after exchanging correspondence, is now determined to prove his innocence and have him released so they can marry.
Charlotte requested the help of Ward and his colleague, Englishman Yardley Acheman (David Oyelowo), who are both investigative reporters from The Miami Times. Ward's younger brother, Jack Jansen (Zac Efron), is hired as their driver. Ward has mixed feelings about returning home to his estranged father, who runs a local newspaper and distributes The Miami Times in their town. Both Jansen brothers dislike their father's latest girlfriend, Ellen. Jack now works as a paperboy for his father's business after having been expelled from college for vandalism, ending his prospective career as a professional swimmer. His only real friend is Anita, who brought him and Ward up after their mother left them.
The evidence against Van Wetter is inconsistent and Ward and Yardley are confident they can expose Van Wetter as a victim of redneck justice. Meanwhile, Jack has fallen in love with Charlotte, who only desires Van Wetter. During a day at the beach, Jack gets stung by a jellyfish and has a life-threatening allergic reaction. Charlotte saves his life by urinating on him, an embarrassing circumstance that his father promptly exploits for an article on his newspaper. Anita realizes that Jack can never stop thinking of Charlotte as she is his first true love.
Van Wetter is hostile to the reporters at first, and contrary to the romantic portrayal he had painted of himself in his letters to Charlotte, he reveals himself to be a sexist and rude man with anger issues. One day, after finally acquiring some useful information from Van Wetter, the Jansens travel to meet Van Wetter's uncle Tyree. The man is the only one who can corroborate Van Wetter's alibi, since, according to Van Wetter, the two men were stealing sod from a golf course in Ormond Beach the night of the murder. Tyree, who lives in pitiful conditions in the middle of the swamp with his "white trash" family, is initially ill-disposed and wary of admitting his own crime to save his nephew's life, but finally caves in. In the meantime, Yardley and Charlotte have visited the golf course to verify that side of the story; Yardley comes back claiming to have tracked the developer who bought the sod stolen by Hillary and Tyree, but the man only agreed to talk upon the promise to remain anonymous, so Yardley refuses to disclose his name even to Ward. Satisfied with his findings, Yardley goes back to Miami to start writing the article.
Suspicious of Yardley's motives, Ward decides to go check the truth in Ormond Beach himself, with Jack and Charlotte in tow. During the trip, Ward gets drunk, approaches two black men in a bar, and take them to his motel room. During the night, Charlotte wakes up Jack after hearing alarming sound from Ward's room, and the two finds Ward tied up, after being raped and tortured by the two men. As Ward is taken to the hospital, Jack does not resent him for secretly being a homosexual or for being into violent, self-destructive practices, but just for keeping from him this side of his adult life.
While Ward's still in the hospital, Jack goes to Miami to try and convince Yardley not to publish the article in his brother's name without checking all the facts first. During the confrontation, Yardley reveals he's actually an American pretending to be English to escape discrimination. He also reveals he had given Ward sexual favors in the past, which was the beginning of Ward's guilty, self-hating infatuation with black men.
After the article is published, Van Wetter obtains a pardon and is released from prison. He takes Charlotte away to the swamp to live with him. Months later, she is unhappy with the demeaning lifestyle she has to endure, and sends a letter to Jack telling him she now realizes she made a mistake and plans to reunite with him at his father and Ellen's wedding reception. However, Jack only finds out about the letter one month later, at the very day of the wedding, when Anita, who's been fired from the Jansen household, gives the letter to him, revealing Ellen decided to hide it from Jack.
Since Charlotte is not there, a worried Jack leaves the party to go find her, followed by Ward, who has lost an eye due to the incident at Ormond Beach and is now an alcoholic after Yardley left for New York with a deal to write a book on the Van Wetter case. When Jack and Ward confront Van Wetter, Charlotte has already been killed after Van Watter refused to let her leave to attend the wedding. A fight ensues, and Van Wetter kills Ward as well, by slashing his throat with a machete (the same weapon the sheriff was murdered with), but Jack manages to evade Van Wetter by diving into the swamp; the next morning, he retrieves Ward and Charlotte's bodies and leaves on the boat in which they came.
Anita finishes narrating by revealing Van Wetter was later convicted for the murders of Ward and Charlotte and sent to the electric chair, yet the identity of the sheriff's murderer was never ascertained. Jack would later meet his mother at Ward's funeral, but he would never get over Charlotte.
romantic, dark, murder