Murphy's Dozen

The murder of a socialite leads to a sensational trial, with a close governor's race hanging on its outcome.

A hybrid documentary captures the villagers of Covas do Barroso, Portugal, as they creatively resist a British company's plans for a massive open-cast lithium mine through musical performances and Western-inspired staging.

Besides a long glittering river, some men raise a pole. A tent balloons up. Where there was wide sand and the sound of water lapping, there is now a truck, chairs, hoops, stools, ropes, goats, a lioness, a pair of fat girls, some bicycles, and an old man with a philosopher's dignity, putting on white paste. Across a dirt road, the circus truck comes to a village. The tent goes up. Schoolboys run to the tent. Village women come and watch an acrobat roll a hoop across a tightrope. A lion leaps from the edge of one stool - across darkness - onto another stool. A gap-toothed old woman gazes at a goat on a tight rope; her eyes are wide with curiosity. For three days the circus makes small ripples in the life of this village. Municipal permits are required. At a toddy shop, a soldier befriends the circus strongman; a pump attendant sits on a rock each day watching a village girl bathe and dry her hair. The dwarf brings back to the circus a watermelon larger than his head.

After many years, MacKenzie Scott is pardoned from prison, but his wife is already involved with another man. Nevertheless, he travels incognito to his family's town. There he befriends his daughter Victoria, who doesn't recognize him, and encourages her musical abilities.

When a domestic counselor's ex-wife attempts to move to the other side of the country with their son and new boyfriend, he decides to do whatever is necessary to keep it from happening.