Tropic Sprockets / Year By the Sea

Tropic Sprockets / Year By the Sea

By Ian Brockway

There have been many films about self discovery and new beginnings. “Year By the Sea,” a debut for director Alexander Janko, is a recent addition to the genre, which includes “An Unmarried Woman,” “The Razor’s Edge” and “About Schmidt.” This film has a fine cast featuring Karen Allen (Raiders of the Lost Ark) and veteran actor S. Epatha Merkerson (Black Snake Moan, She’s Gotta Have It). The story is based on a memoir by Joan Anderson and is intriguing: a married woman, Joan (Karen Allen), is treated with flat indifference by Robin (Michael Cristofer) and she decides to go solo and try something new.

Settling on Cape Cod, she meets the experimental Joan Erickson (Celia Imrie), wife and partner to the groundbreaking psychologist Erick Erickson. Needless to say, the two Joans become fast friends.

The film is greatly boosted by the ease and chemistry of Allen, who shows an authenticity and warmth. The film also has a genuine feeling for the cool benevolence of their communal fishing town without being overbearing.

Joan wanders here and there, telling little parcels of herself. She meets a rugged fisherman, Cahoon (Yannick Bisson) and decides to work the register at the local seafood store. Joan befriends the earnest Luce (Monique Gabriela Curnen) who has a violent boyfriend Billy (Kohler McKenzie).

While the drama progresses naturally, suddenly events transpire that speak of cliches. When a very drunk and frightening  Billy is hit with a frying pan, the film plays like a cartoon. One slug doesn’t do him in. He is simply numb, seeing stars. Then when the ladies go for a spin, the car gets a flat tire and Joan hollers and yells in a sandy beach tantrum right out of Curly from “The Three Stooges.” Also silly are Mrs Erickson’s comments about picking out some colored yarn for a therapy session as she waves a sprig of sage around the room. “Just breathe it in!” she encourages. Such a New Age exclamation feels over the top and comic in what is otherwise a thoughtful, well-intentioned film.

The narrative has the compelling component of Erick Erickson, who was a leading pioneer in child development. But for those that don’t know about Erickson’s research, one yearns for more on film, instead of the brief shots of Erick at a nursing home.

The film does well in capturing the freedom of Joan Erickson however and one has the impression that she is a rebel. There are well done pensive scenes of Joan simply being by herself, trudging out on the icy water and rowing her boat. Deftly shown as well is Robin’s uptight gruffness when Joan is trekking out to see the seals, open and smiling to the elements.

Why then the need for the soapy and sugary elements that are similarly found in “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” with a wildly out of control car and hysterical giggling ladies?

There is even a slight kiss in the shower between Joan and Cahoon, the muscle man of Massachusetts. Last but not least, Robin appears wearing a red bandanna, embracing his inner hippie as he finally realizes he’s been a prick in a suit.

Though the film is a hit for Allen, Merkerson and Imrie, “Year By the Sea” has pockets of formula which dilute its charm. All but the most virginal of audiences will find a real journey, traveling beyond what ends here as a brief matinee idyll.

Write Ian at [email protected]

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