Natalie also has a hot-headed ex-husband (William Mapother, who suggests a sleazy, white-trash version of his real-life cousin, Tom Cruise). He won't leave her alone, threatening to escalate Frank's idyllic summer fling into a volatile macho showdown. It's a mess, since Natalie's probably "the one," though Frank, who has had plenty of girlfriends, doesn't seem quite ready to admit it yet.

Though understandably apprehensive, the Fowlers want to approve. Some virile part of Dr. Fowler seems fulfilled by the fact that his son has caught the town's prize beauty. Meanwhile, his wife, Ruth (Sissy Spacek), can read her son well enough to know that this one's different from the others, and she worries. She doesn't want Frank to stay home from school for a girl.

It is in this tension that the movie's devastating power lies, in the consummation of a mother's greatest fears and in the shift from Ruth's quiet misgivings to tragedy and numb regret. The movie trusts its audience with their own interpretations, allowing the performances to convey what words never could.

In one of those reflective moments that so satisfyingly enriches Todd Field's debut feature, Matt patiently explains how one of his captured lobsters could have lost an arm. "Two's company, three's a crime," he says, and when you end up with two males and a female "in the bedroom" (that is, locked together in a lobster trap), things have a way of getting nasty.

[as featured on Moviefone.com]