Loggerheads [DVD] [2005] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

In Asheville, North Carolina, middle-aged Grace (Hunt) is back in her briskly managerial mother's (Michael Learned) house after some rough times that included a suicide attempt. Grace is determined to track down the child she gave birth to at 17 and gave up for adoption at mom's insistence. Because adoption records are sealed under the state's laws, she underhandedly hires a private investigator to find him.

Meanwhile, miles away in suburban Eden, chirpy and nosy Elizabeth (Tess Harper), feigns normalcy whilst both she and minister husband Robert (Chris Sarandon) strain to ignore the truth behind Marc, their runaway son. Both Elizabeth and Robert are strict religious conservatives, who when they discovered Marc kissing a boy, bought down their entire fire and brimstone wrath upon him.

Marc has since vanished and hasn't been heard from since; mention of him is shrouded in taboo and secrecy. Earth-motherly neighbor Rachel (Robin Weigert), however, reveals she knows his whereabouts perhaps allowing for one last chance of reconciliation for Elizabeth. Mark (Kip Pardue) has actually ended up in the coastal town of Kure Beach, for no reason beyond a fascination with the loggerhead turtles that can be seen making their way from shore to sea at night.

Local police don't tolerate drifters, but hunky motel owner George, (Michael Kelly) who is mourning the loss of a male partner who drowned mysteriously, offers free lodging to Mark, who confesses that he is H.I.V.-positive. Marc and George develop a melancholy, very hesitant romantic bond; it's an affair that is haunted by the tragedy of their respective pasts.

As Marc and George become closer, Mark's anxious spirit hovers over the lives of Elizabeth and Grace. Caught between maternal love and religious dogma, Elizabeth misses her only son terribly. She just can't come to terms with the fact that her son is gone, yet the issue of his homosexuality just sits too uncomfortably with her husband. When two men and a little boy move into the house across the street, Elizabeth speculates that their new neighbors might be same sex daddies with an adopted son.

As Grace, Ms. Hunt As Grace, Ms. Hunt, conveys an agonizing sense of personal incompleteness compounded by years of pent-up shame. She aches to reconnect with her long-lost son, whilst fending off the judgment of her officious mother, who would prefer for Grace to forget it all and just move on.

Director Tim Kirkman bathes his movie in a kind-hearted tenderness and melancholy, and you really get the sense that it isn't easy being any of the troubled characters in this movie. The actors are so good that you instantly believe in these characters and really sympathize with them. With overheard radio broadcasts - designating the time period as late in President Clinton's second term or early in George W. Bush's first - are often the only signal the script is jumping around in time, it takes a while to sort out just what is going on and when, and it's a little confusing at first.

However, the film eventually comes together and it not just serves as homage to middle-American intolerance and the different layers of maternal guilt and grief, but it has a purity and warmth that underscores the value of taking your time and getting it right. Mike Leonard March 06.