not worth the time

Cliche follows cliche - a cantankerous, women-hating old lightkeeper is Hiding A Secret - and as it turns out,


SPOILERS


he doesn't really hate women. Slow, episodic, completely predictable. Badly edited. As with all too many Dreyfuss movies, this one requires that he do no stretching. A mediocre role for an actor who chose an unchallenging script. Not to mention a totally wasted Bruce Dern who is just playing his own version of cantankerous. No stretch there, either. The entire cast could just as easily have been replaced by unknowns or soap opera actors. The film has an uncomfortably antiquated feel, as if it was produced somewhere between 1977 and 1988, like The Whales of August, a vehicle for Older Big Actors to be filmed in ever-so-sensitive literary-dramatic NostalgiaVision. Except for the lovely seacoast setting and good photography, the film has nothing to recommend it.