Shot in Australia in 2005, on a low budget and with a collection of unknown actors, Tan Lines centers on one Midget Hollows (newcomer Jack Baxter), a sixteen-year-old so skinny he could be thread through a needle.

Midget lives in a small town by the sea where he hangs out with a group of similarly slim-hipped surfer buds who spend their days catching waves and their nights partying. Midget finds this arrangement increasingly claustrophobic. The promise of spending his off-hours at the beach no longer offsets the drudgery he endures working as a gardener, or the tedium he finds living among friends who exhibit no ambition or imagination.

One of the film's rare overlaps with its big-budget Hollywood cousins is that Midget and his surfer pals seem to exist in a world largely absent of parental influence or intrusion, which allows them to surf, drink, and smoke weed to their hearts' content.

While Midget's home life is so squalid that he's forced to share a bed with his mother, all the audience ever sees of the reputedly loose woman is her mess of hair and ridiculously long fingernails poking out of the bed sheets; the rest of her sleeping body is obscured. It's a running joke that wears out its welcome.

Obviously, the sad facts of Midget's fatherless upbringing, combined with his fresh-face appeal and inviting gaze, are supposed to be enough to engender some degree of audience empathy. But this combination's not enough to counter Midget's low-key indifference to everything.

Take Midget's early walking-talking-and-surfing scenes alongside his dreadlock-haired best friend, Dan (Jed Clarke). The scenes are meant to establish the boys' relationship--the nonchalance and playfulness of their bond. But these moments are downplayed and torpidly acted, which ultimately torpedoes any narrative momentum they might provide.

Such depictions of youthful disaffection sometimes work (think Larry Clark's Kids), but they do so only when guided by a directorial hand confident enough to steer the course in a purposeful direction. Without careful charting, aimless dialogue and unsure pacing fail to produce any meaningful depth charge for an audience, which is exactly what happens here.

Possibilities get ratcheted up a notch with the return home of Cass (Daniel O'Leary) , Dan's dreadlocked older brother, who ran away four years earlier after being caught in an illicit homosexual relationship with his high school geography teacher. As a result, the now world-weary Cass has some obvious trust issues, as evidenced by the way he has adorned his bedroom walls with saintly icons so he'll have someone to look over him.

Naïve Midget is intrigued by Cass's openness, vulnerability and dark good looks, and seeks out the older boy's company during a party one night. (One of director Eldridge's best social observations is his depiction of iPod-wearing partygoers dancing together in unison while at the same time being locked inside the isolation of their individual MP3 playlists.)

When Midget and Cass fall inevitably into bed together, the hookup feels a little rushed, though it's a welcome turn that provides the plot with a much-needed shot in the arm. The fact that Midget has to keep his affair secret from his straight buddies creates a degree of tension--but not much.

Night after night the two boys make out in Cass's old bedroom in a series of poorly lit scenes that make it nearly impossible to tell who is doing what to whom. And while Cass's parents are conveniently out of town, exactly what brother Daniel is doing during all these trysts--whether he notices, whether he cares, whether it will affect his relationship with either his brother or his best bud--are all plot points inconveniently overlooked.

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