The shadow of films like Diner and Beautiful Girls loom large over Diggers, yet another slice-of-life story about a bunch of average joes taking it one day at a time in their quiet hometown. This tale has been told so often (in fact, its roots can be traced back to Fellini's 1953 coming-of-age classic I Vitelloni) the only way to keep it remotely fresh is to keep changing the time period and the professions of the principal characters. Hence, Diggers takes place on Long Island in the mid-'70s and the scruffy heroes are clam diggers whose livelihood takes a major hit when a big corporation purchases buys up the rights to their local fishing grounds.
The main player in this particular small town is Hunt (Paul Rudd), a second-generation digger who has reluctantly taken over the family business from his recently deceased father. An amateur photographer in his off-hours, Hunt often thinks about heading towards the bright lights of Manhattan, a plan that seems more attractive after he gets involved with visiting Manhattan party girl Zoey (Lauren Ambrose). At the same time, he feels bound to the island by his older sister Gina (Maura Tierney), a divorcee with no apparent romantic prospects on the horizon. Hunt's buddies and fellow clam diggers include ladies' man Jack (Ron Eldard) and family man Lozo (Ken Marino), who has a wife (Sarah Paulson) and four kids with one more on the way. As their daily hauls get smaller and the bills start to mount, each of these guys has to ponder what it is they really want out of life.
Written by Ken Marino (who got his start as a performer/writer on the cult MTV comedy series The State) and directed by music video helmer Katherine Dieckmann, Diggers ambles along amiably enough thanks largely to the likeable cast. Rudd as usual is a winning presence and there's a compelling casualness to the way he, Eldard, and Hamilton interact. (The actresses don't come off quite as well unfortunately — Ambrose is too aggressively eccentric and Paulson is too shrill. Only Tierney really fits into the film's low-key vibe.) Still, when you reach the end of the film, you may find yourself wondering whether these minor pleasures amount to anything more substantial and the sad reality is that they really don't. Of course, Diner isn't exactly a rich and complex text either, but those Baltimore boys are ultimately a more relatable bunch than these Long Island diggers. One can only guess what milieu this genre will tackle next: how about janitors in small-town Alaska circa 1986?
Copyright © 2008 Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Inc.