Midget and Cass observe two senior citizen couples playing a bawdy game of midnight lawn bowling that devolves into a wet clothing contest of sorts. The saints depicted in Cass's collection of iconography begin having conversations with a vulgar-tongued photograph of the Pope.

Perhaps strangest of all, Midget's gardening work at the McQuillan mansion turns out to involve more than trimming bushes; he must indulge the whims of a perverted old woman whose idea of teaching her niece ladylike restraint and proper comportment includes having Midget orally service the girl as she tries not to spill a cup of hot tea. (This grotesquerie of old-maid McQuillan seems a direct homage to Waters' Edie the Egg Lady.)

While all these episodes may elicit some degree of laughter on their own, they are spliced together in a way that seems more willy-nilly than visionary.

More filler material arrives as Midget periodically retreats inside his headphones, and director Aldridge tries to marshal bits of songs to do the work proper storytelling should do.

At some point Midget's surfing posse trades in their longboards for skateboards, resulting in a montage of sub-par skating tricks even more lackluster than the boys' overly brief attempts at riding waves. (For a movie about surfers and skateboarders, the cast doesn't spend much time doing such activities, and when they do, they exhibit little enjoyment or technical flourish).

The long scene at the skate park is a reminder that, while mostly nice looking, these teens are desperately average, and while that may be true to life, it doesn't make for interesting characters or an interesting story.

Midget Hollows belongs to that fraternity of oddly named fictional creations that counts Forrest Gump, Pecker and Travis Bickle among its brotherhood. Such monikers are typically used to make a character stand out, to show he is marked in some way, for better or worse.

And while Midget is of normal stature, it's true he is somewhat hollow at heart. His late-night confession of love to Cass comes off as mere words. Perhaps this is because the movie, like Midget, doesn't really know where it's heading. Is it a comedy? A coming-of-age romance? A pseudo documentary about surfing and slacking?

It's obvious that filmmaker Aldridge wanted to kick around some big ideas. More than halfway through the movie, Midget seeks advice from Swifty (Bob Nobel), an aging avuncular figure who delivers a line that suggests great portent. “It is said that you, Midget Hollows, were pulled from the ocean itself,” notes the crusty old surfer. “Look after your mother, Midget, she caught you and she can throw you back.”

But this seems a red herring in a movie that has already chosen to relegate Midget's mother to a throwaway punch-line. Midget's no more invested in her than is the audience.

Twentysomething director Aldridge, who grew up around Brighton, England, has lived in Australia for the last four years, and it's clear he cares about this territory even if he hasn't yet found the filmmaking skills required to make the most of it.

While independent films certainly don't need to aspire to Hollywood formulas, they nevertheless need to exhibit surety of purpose and artful appeal. Had Aldridge's collection of odd moments been carefully edited into a compelling story, he might have been on to something.

At any rate, he deserves kudos for using real teenagers to play the teens in his movie, and for being unflinching in his desire to show the complexities of both sexual desire and coming of age.

Tan Lines is the kind of unusual film a serious queer moviegoer hopes desperately to like. But its see-what-sticks-to-the-wall approach needs to be replaced with a surer sense of vision. Lackluster performance does not equal teenage verisimilitude, nor does a shaky hand-held camera equal cinéma vérité.

While filmmaker Ed Aldridge shows signs of promise, it's clear he's still got lessons to learn. Let's hope he gets a second chance to catch the big wave.

Tan Lines had its world premiere screening on July 21st at the 2006 Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, has been acquired by TLA Releasing, although a distribution date has not yet been set.

Kelly McQuain holds two fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His fiction has appeared in the Harrington Gay Men's Fiction Quarterly, Skin & Ink, Best Gay Erotica and elsewhere.

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