I saw Fairhaven the Movie at the Provincetown film festival's closing night's screening and I've been replaying portions in my mind for a week now. The film's lure for me is both personal and aesthetic since I'm a town native though I live here only part time. I was piqued by the film's premise once I heard of its creation and looked forward to viewing an outsider's take on my hometown. I never expected, however, to be so affected by a break out piece that was filmed in 18 days on a shoestring budget during a snowy, frozen January. The film is a powerful depiction of the complicated love/hate relationships engendered by small town life. Its treatment of the universal themes of friendship, family, love and personal fulfillment are told through characters who eerily ring true. I may be a generation away from them, and the details may differ, but I recognize those characters and their situations because they resemble people who walk the streets of Fairhaven every day. These are people I know. There is a duality to life here; contrasts and contradictions reign supreme. Like Jon, the townspeople have dreams that are fed by a strong sense of history and a place that can be wistfully romantic (a harbor that has been full of ships and of men who have sailed "away" for hundreds of years for example) yet are starved by limited opportunities or the brutal reality of jobs in the fishing or maritime industries. The lure of the outside world versus the cocoon of small town life creates a recurring struggle for many. My dad went to sea as an officer with the Merchant Marine for forty years. My mother's two brothers were commercial fisherman. One uncle was lost in Newport harbor in 1979 and his name is on a plaque at the Seaman's Bethel in New Bedford. As a young girl imbued with the history of this area, I never dreamed I'd have an uncle whose name would appear on the plaques that Herman Melville writes of in Moby Dick. Whenever I visit the Bethel with visitors, I feel an odd clash of literary and real life and it's very disturbing. Until that incident, I assumed my dad and my uncles would always return home to Fairhaven. Many in this area experience its pain as well as its beauty in both a historical and modern tear of the heart. This film has that Fairhaven psyche down pat. Like Sam, Dave and Kate, people become embroiled in romantic relationships that overlap each other. Secrets become necessities in a small town, seemingly archaic in this time of facebook and confessional openness, but necessities nonetheless. In the Fairhaven I know, everyone has secrets; everyone has ghosts. And if those secrets are revealed, all hell breaks loose. The clash between Jon and Dave (Chris Messina's character who reluctantly returns home for his estranged father's funeral) shows the irony of complicated relationships that can threaten to destroy yet buoy oneself at the same time. Dave's self-destructive edginess serves to crystallize Jon's pathway. The contrast between Dave's darkness/self-banishment and the lightness of a nurturing connected community rings true. Because it is a seafaring town, the pull of home is, indeed, a strong one here. Personal histories can cause one either to root to the place or to yank oneself away. There is a palpable conflict between those of us who have remained and those who have "gotten away." And there are many of us who got away only to pine for the place each day we are gone and who never feel so right as we do at home in Fairhaven. It is a special place. This film gets that. The performance by the cast in their portrayal of these realistic characters is exemplary. Chris Messina, Tom O'Brien, Sarah Paulson, Rich Sommer et al are truly gems of the industry. The acting is often naturally understated. Early in the film, when Kate's ex-husband Sam states, "Dave's back in town," Sarah Paulsen's character simply replies, "Oh yeah?" but her hesitation, nervous gulp and tight smile imply a personal history there that hints of things to come. Maryann Plunkett's warm and down to earth portrayal as Jon's mum is reminiscent of the open friendliness that pervades the real Fairhaven. Rich Sommer's Sam has the sweet good guy nailed. Naively positive in the wake of heartbreak, denying himself while struggling to raise his daughter, he is conceivably the most mature of them all. Peter Simonite's cinematography is superb; it's the vehicle that reveals Fairhaven the town as a character in its own right. Shots of the harbor at night for example, and the frozen low tide to Angelica Rock at Wilbur's Point illuminate the duplicity of the place-its haunting beauty compromised by the freezing weather. I loved the Lincoln Park inclusion (especially since it's being torn down as I write-the film immortalized it for us). It's a poignant metaphor. I love that they end up partying on a commercial boat (so scary to walk those boards to the deck at night in the middle of the winter) even though not many people (okay probably no one) would have motored out into the harbor (too costly and dangerous at night with someone's livelihood). Boats are often the post "last call" party spots and play a large role in peoples' lives here. But what I love most of all about the film is that there's not a tidy wrap-there are stores of unfinished business-just as there is in real life. Yet in the wake of that-friendships endure. In the film just as in real life, we politely ignore the layers of back stories and continue to interact and relate to each other because we have a history or because we love each other or because we have no choice, but we do it most of all, because, in such a small compelling town-we simply need each other.
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