Plot

Drug addiction's collateral damage is starkly revealed when a former honor student, newly addicted to prescription pills, triggers a chain of events that devastates her friends and threatens to tear her family apart.

When the worlds of addiction, denial, deceit and dementia all suddenly collide one night, the collateral damage from teenage drug use is laid bare. Once an honors student, Jackie Holman is newly addicted to prescription pills. Her father Joe is out of work and in denial about Jackie's addiction. Her mother Ellie, pregnant and working double shifts to keep the family afloat, is also burdened with Jackie's senile grandfather and unaware of her daughter's drug use. A fast moving chain of events unfolds as Jackie, desperate to get her next fix, lies in order to get the money she needs from her father. While she parties and waits for her payday, Joe and Ellie race to save her in a clash that brings out cop cars handcuffs and heartache while testing the family resolve. Grounded in the economic decline and teenage aimlessness that afflicts small town America, SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP is raw, emotional and uncomfortably real.—Anonymous

The Holmans, like so many American families, are struggling to survive in an economically depressed small town. Joe is unemployed and Ellie, an unexpectedly pregnant hospital nurse, has been working double shifts, trying to compensate for the loss in the familys income. Already exhausted and stretched thin, they find themselves sandwiched between caring for Joes senile father, Papaw, and their teenage daughter Jackie, a former honor student, who is spiraling down a dark road of drug addiction.

"Suck It Up Buttercup" follows the Holmans during a fifteen-hour period, from 3pm one afternoon to 6am the next morning.  Shot almost entirely with a body rig, the audience is dropped smack into the middle of the unfolding story as Jackie triggers a chain of events that crushes her friends and ends up threatening to tear her family apart.

Vacillating between hope, denial and despair, Joe and Ellie's efforts to help Jackie demonstrate an unconditional love for their daughter, despite her out-of-control behavior. The question ultimately becomes whether anyone or anything can convince Jackie to help herself.

Utilizing a burnt autumn palate and set against a backdrop of urban decay, the film builds on themes that represent some of contemporary America's most troubling afflictions; drugs usage and a sense of desolation among the young. Dark as its subject matter is, its consistently lightened by humor, young loyalties, and boundless love.