The fine photography of beach, water, restaurant and town gives a rich texture to the film.
“Greetings from the Shore” bristles with promise for everyone involved in it.
Writer/director Greg Chwerchak and co-writer Gabrielle Berberich have fashioned
a movie without a misstep. They have aimed for and achieved first-rate acting
and story telling. Drawing heavily on Berberich’s own experience on the Jersey
shore, the two have made the shore town of Lavallette a real character in the
film; this setting is the essential heart of the story.
Jenny
Chambers (Kim Shaw), sad about the recent death of her father, decides to spend
her last summer before college working at the Jersey shore town where she grew
up. Her goal: to earn money toward tuition to Columbia University in the fall.
Her hope disintegrates when the job she had been promised falls through. Alone
in a town she has loved in the past, she hunts for and finally finds a job
teaching English as a second language to the staff of a restaurant that is home
to a motley group of sailors and high stakes gamblers. She becomes one person in
the summer fabric of a shore town, a predictably varied seasonal population that
offers up an unpredictable mix of people and events that include unexpected firs
love with Benicio (David Fumero).
As dominant
as the love story is, the core of the movie is Jenny’s friendship with Catch
(Paul Sorvino), a world weary father figure who reaches back into his experience
to counsel the young girl. Toward the end of the film when things could get
sentimental, actors Shaw and Sorvino manage to avoid that trap with thoroughly
credible performances that are touching rather than trite. It becomes quickly
obvious that Kim Shaw has the kind of intelligence that is the essential bedrock
of a strong career. She is lucky to have her career begin with a film that may
be small, but is mighty in writing and direction.
The fine
photography of beach, water, restaurant and town gives a rich texture to the
film. We in the audience are right there in Lavallette watching the story
unfold; it’s a coming of age film in a place that has, over the years, watched
many young people grow into adulthood. But there’s something special here: this
is the Jersey Shore.
Copyright (c) Illusion