| Director | Rebecca Thomas |
|---|---|
| Budget | $1 million |
| Box office | $137,126 |
After her fifteenth birthday, Rachel McKnight, a member of a fundamentalist Mormon community in Utah, listens to a cassette recorder for the first time and hears a cover of "Hanging on the Telephone" by The Nerves on a blue cassette. Her brother, Mr. Will, takes it from her, stating that it is to be used only for God's purposes. When she discovers she is pregnant, she is convinced that she has conceived miraculously, like the Virgin Mary, through the medium of the cassette. After being questioned by her parents, Mr. Will is blamed for impregnating her, and is asked to leave the community, while Rachel is told she will be married the next day. Rather than undergo a forced, unwanted, quick marriage arranged by her father, Paul, Rachel chooses to journey to Las Vegas, to find the unknown-father of the child she is carrying. Unbeknownst to her, Mr. Will is sleeping in the bed of the family's pickup truck when she steals it, and he inadvertently becomes her unwilling companion.
In Las Vegas Rachel falls in with a group of skaters who live together and play in a band, after becoming intrigued by one of the boys who wears a shirt with an image of a cassette on it. Mr. Will, who has been following her, shows himself and pleads with her to confess who she had sex with so that he can return to their community. Rachel has no interest in Clyde, one of the skaters, nor does he for her. However, one night after Mr. Will explains Rachel is carrying "God's child", Clyde offers to marry Rachel, saying that together they can look for the man on the tape, whom Rachel believes is the father of her immaculately-conceived child. She is visibly relieved at the idea of their union protecting her from her father's unwanted arranged marriage, and that a marriage aligns with her religious beliefs, so she accepts his offer and announces they are now married.
Clyde and Rachel break into his parents' house looking for food and money, accompanied by Mr. Will and Clyde's roommate. Clyde's father calls the police and Mr. Will is arrested while Rachel flees. Remembering one of her mother's bedtime stories, she feels guided to follow a red Mustang that drives near her on the highway. She discovers that its owner, Tim, is the man who recorded the tape, and is, in fact, her biological father, not the father of the baby she's carrying, as she'd previously believed.
Disappointed and confused, Rachel decides to return to her community. Meanwhile, Mr. Will is bailed out of jail by Tim, who is looking for Rachel. Together, Tim and Mr. Will drive out to the community, and on the way they discover Clyde, whose van has broken down on the highway. As Rachel is on the altar about to be wed into a forced marriage, Tim, Mr. Will, and Clyde peel up in front of the church in the red Mustang and rescue her.
Mr. Will later returns to the community and is accepted back by his mother, after sharing a "confession of sorts" that Rachel has recorded on the blue cassette stating she still firmly believes that God fathered her child and guided her, every step of her journey. Mr. Will's father is not present at this decision.
Some months later, Clyde and a visibly pregnant Rachel are living in a tent by the beach, and hold hands as they walk through the waves.
Back in the community, Mr. Will tentatively sits down at the table covered in Biblical texts used for confessions and interrogations with the tape recorder - the chair previously used only by his father, the leader of the fundamentalist community. Light shines through the window onto the texts as Mr. Will sits and appears to slowly take in the magnitude of all before him. Slowly, he reaches out to touch the items, seemingly accepting his fate as the next, more compassionate, worldly-experienced leader of their sect.