Diggers

This movie was selected because it is about the lives of clam diggers living in Long Island during the middle seventies. I grew up enjoying raking clams out of the tidal muck, in the same waters, about the same time. There is nothing more earthy than eating a raw clam that you just dug out of the salty mud.
The main characters are:

• Paul Rudd as the focus playing the role of digger Hunt, son of a digger. Rudd did a movie called The Shape of Things with Gretchen Mol.
• Ken Marino as Lozo, fellow digger and father of a brood. Mr Marino is also the writer of the screenplay.
• Ron Eldard as Jack, fellow digger and Casanova of the neighborhood.
• Josh Hamilton as Cons, fellow digger, town dealer and intellectual.
• Maura Tierney as Gina, divorced brother of Hunt, caretaker for the father. You will recognize Maura from many episodes of News Radio and later ER.
• Sarah Paulson as Julie, Lozo's pregnant wife and friend of Gina. Paulson was a regular on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
• Lauren Ambrose as Zoey, rich girl, Hunt's inspiration for breaking away.

The story is about independent fisherman's lives of hard work. An evil corporation has moved into town and bought up fishing rights to tidal tracts with good clam beds. Independents who have made livings clamming for generations are now having to work extra extra for less than subsistence. The work is so hard that Hunt's father dies working in his boat.
Hunt is a young man who while comfortable with his small town life, has an obsession with photography of still life. This is an indicator of untapped potential that Zoey makes obvious during his mourning stage. The movie ends with Hunt giving Jack a smile and the finger as he leaves to make his fortune.
There is one fight, some drug use and a boatload of profanity. The profanity was what made it feel like the area I call home.

Score 34 of 50, a movie that I enjoyed but would not recommend to other than a local or child of the seventies.

• Character Development 8 out of 10, Hunt evolves from a Digger to a photographer, Lozo looks for work at the corporation, Julie gets pregnant again.
• Acting 7 out of 10, Rudd is believable as a detached laborer, Hamilton is amusing as the wasted intellectual.
• Photography, cinematography 7 out of 10, the field, Long Island's tidal marshes are hard to make look bad.
• Writing, script 5 out of 10, simplistic, it is hard to get around the profanity however appropriate to the plot.
• Concept 7 out of 10, personal growth in a period piece, fun.