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'Loggerheads' is meandering, melancholy, hopeful

It's a shame that "Loggerheads" — the kind of delicately observed character study that's a welcome alternative to noisy Hollywood product — sometimes moves as slowly as the turtles that give it its title.

Writer-director Tim Kirkman's drama features an elegant, haunting structure. It's set in three North Carolina towns on Mother's Day weekend, but in different years: Kure Beach in 1999, Eden in 2000 and Asheville in 2001.

Strand Releasing 'Loggerheads' B- The verdict: A sensitive Southern character study a little too slow for its own good. Director: Tim Kirkman Starring: Bonnie Hunt, Tess Harper, Kip Pardue, Michael Kelly, Michael Learned Run time: 101 minutes Release date: Oct. 14, 2005 Rating: not rated On the web Official movie site [an error occurred while processing this directive]

We start at the beach, where young drifter Mark (Kip Pardue) sleeps on the dunes and tries to protect the eggs the loggerhead females lay in the warm sand. He catches the eye of George (Michael Kelly), a hotel owner who gives Mark shelter when a cop orders him off the beach.

George and Mark are both gay, and Mark assumes the offer of a free room is meant to be a trade-off for sex. He's used to bartering like that, having lived on his own since he was 17, doing what it takes to get by. But no. George is just a nice guy (believably so in Kelly's gentle performance). The relationship they develop is one of tender mutual friendship.

In Eden — the town's name, like a couple of other things, weighs down the script with easy symbolism — Elizabeth (Tess Harper) becomes fascinated by new neighbors: two men and a boy. Could they be — gasp — gay? Actually, the question concerns her husband Robert (Chris Sarandon) more. He's a minister who invites people to church in a way that sounds more like social threat than spiritual welcome.

In Asheville, Grace (Bonnie Hunt) has moved back from Atlanta to live with her mother (Michael Learned). Emotionally fragile, Grace increasingly wonders what happened to the baby she had at age 17, then gave up for adoption.

As the film intercuts between towns and time frames, the hidden connections among the characters become easy to figure out, probably sooner than Kirkman intended. (That's partly the fault of too-casual pacing.) The script sometimes comes close to preaching to the choir about small-town homophobia and parent-child miscommunications, but usually pulls back from speechifying.

Despite a meandering tone, "Loggerheads" is consistently watchable thanks to committed actors playing recognizable, decent folks just trying to do the right thing — or rectify mistakes of the past.

Harper is strong and subtle as a preacher's wife starting to question a long marriage built on obedience to community doctrine. (The closest "Loggerheads" comes to offering up a villain is in Sarandon's inflexible man of God, but even he is treated with understanding.)

Hunt's haunted Grace is a change of pace for the comedian. She's good, but Kirkman's script doesn't give her much to do besides mope; a hint of Hunt's innate sparkle could have fleshed out the character.

There's also a fine cameo from "Deadwood's" Robin Weigert as a woman who helps Grace track her child.

Finally, as lost-boy Mark, Pardue delivers a performance equal parts sweetness and sadness while he drifts through life, caring more for turtles than for himself.

He asks George, "If you were my mom, would you want to meet me?" The question, and George's response, give the movie its melancholy/hopeful heart.