Midway, a flashback reel interrupts the main action: grainy footage of the theater in its first life—a barn, then a cinema palace, then a shuttered ruin. These ghosts populate the aisles, murmuring in the clink of empty soda cups. The past isn't a backdrop here; it’s a living projector, flipping through reels of people who loved the place into being. The present characters wrestle with the past’s demands: protect it, exploit it, or watch it calcify into a museum piece.