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95 MINUTES | KENDALL SQUARE

Tim Kirkman’s drama weaves three disparate yarns along the North Carolina coast, with gay themes and the Bush-Gore presidential struggle raging in the background. In Eden, a minister (Chris Sarandon) and his wife (a subtle, sublime Tess Harper) wrestle with their son’s homosexuality. In Asheville, a recently unemployed woman (Bonnie Hunt) searches for the boy she gave up for adoption as a teenager. And on Kure Beach, an HIV-positive turtle-protection advocate (Kip Pardue doing the reptilian equivalent of Grizzly Man) seeks solace and self-discovery. With town names that bear obvious double meaning, you know redemption, revelation, and some fateful tie-ins lie in the distant crashing waves. Kirkman, whose effort seems to be channeling the same brand of Southern dysfunction that Junebug delivered earlier this year, is no stranger to the milieu; his debut film, Dear Jesse, was a Michael Moore–lite rebuke of the infamous senator and his opinions on homosexuality. Loggerheads doesn’t buzz like Junebug, but it does make it to shore.