Diggers

In 1976, America's bicentennial, four friends - amateur photographer Paul Rudd (as Hunt), married man Ken Marino (as Frankie Lozo), promiscuous Ron Eldard (as Jack), and druggie Josh Hamilton (as Cons) - fret about losing their livelihood as Long Island, NY clam "Diggers" as the economy changes to favor corporate claming. The women in their lives include Mr. Rudd's sister Maura Tierney (as Gina), his city flame Lauren Ambrose (as Zoey), and Mr. Marino's perpetually pregnant wife Sarah Paulson (as Julie).

It is interesting that Islip born co-star Marino also wrote the story, because the drama really comes to life during the scene when Ms. Paulson tells him she is expecting yet another child. The couple's situation is real, well-played, and timeless. Marino subsequent frustration after suiting up to fill out a job application leads to probably the film's best moment. Otherwise, to quote Hamlet, "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," in director Katherine Dieckmann's setting and character driven drama.

***** Diggers (9/9/06) Katherine Dieckmann ~ Paul Rudd, Ken Marino, Maura Tierney, Lauren Ambrose

I often wondered, after seeing "Reno 911" and the other TV/movies done by the Michael Ian Black part of MTV's "The State," what had happened to Ken Marino? Sure he was in a couple bit parts with "Reno," but never a regular with any of the future endeavors by his old comedy troupe. Thanks to HDNet Films, Marino has been brought into the film world with his writing debut Diggers. This film is a drama to its core, yet also one of the funniest movies I have seen in a while. It's good to see that my old MTV comedians are all seeing some sort of success today.

Diggers is a tale of a small clamming community on Long Island. Like most working class towns, the people all know each other from school days and just growing up in close proximity with parents of similar occupation. A huge conglomerate has come to town, restricted the best clam areas, and taken away much of the towns financial opportunities. Some have defected and sold out to earn money for their families, however, the die-hard diggers at the forefront of this tale refuse to give in. They go out there and work for what little they can to scrap by and support their loved ones. Our main conduit into the story is Hunt, played perfectly by the always great Paul Rudd. He is a dreamer, taking photos wherever he goes, but still does his clam digging, meeting up with his father later in the day after sleeping in first. This day changes everything, though, as Hunt's father dies on the water. Everyone comes together for the funeral and you start to see a change for this group of friends and how they will continue their lives.

Rudd has the right mix of sarcasm and protective mindset for those he loves along with bottled up emotions just waiting to be let out. Diggers is at its core a story of how he finally looks at his life and decides to do what he wants; first though, he needs to accept himself and deal with the tragedy that has followed his life to this point. His mother always wanted to take him to the city when he got older, but she never got the chance. Maybe through the course of events in this film, he can finally get the courage to see what is out there for him.

Rudd is not the only shining spot in the movie. This is a great cast of "those guy" actors. Maura Tierney is effective as Hunt's sister, coping with the loss of her father and a burgeoning relationship with an odd choice for a suitor; Lauren Ambrose is fun as the city girl on vacation, "silent flirting" with Rudd until he ruins the façade; Ron Eldard shows his comedic worth as he always does in small roles; and Sarah Paulson plays the mother of five with love and compassion, but also an edge to counteract the verbal tirades of her husband. That husband steals every scene, and is played by our writer, Ken Marino. The scene that introduces his character in the bathroom is priceless. You have to give him credit for writing the role for himself so effectively—the hypocritical speech, swearing in front of his kids yet jumping at them when they swear is hilarious, and the verbal wars with his wife, always ending in a smile, are fantastic. Anytime a father can yell at his kids to go outside and play as punishment, and have it work, I'm totally with that role waiting anxiously for what he may do next…like sending them outside in the rain to finish their breakfast.

Overall Diggers is a wonderful little gem to enjoy. The laughs are big, but they surround a story that is really about friendship and family and the love necessary to work through it all. If nothing else, Marino infused his script with plenty of heart and you are with these crazy people from the start, experiencing how one tragedy can open their eyes and change their courses for the future. I can't wait now to see his follow-up The Ten.

How refreshing it is to encounter an art house, "independent" film that doesn't rely on "quirkiness," "eclecticism" or "eccentricity" to impress the viewer with its cleverness. Instead, "Diggers" is a realistic slice-of-life drama that plays it straight with its audience, viewing both its characters and their situations without cynicism or irony.

Set in 1976, "Diggers" focuses on four young men leading lives of quiet desperation, working as independent clam diggers on Long Island Sound. All four have pretty much accepted the fate life has handed them, although one, a talented photographer named Hunt (Paul Rudd), dreams vaguely of one day starting a new life away from his family home and business, if only he can muster enough personal courage and initiative to actually make the move. His married buddy, Lozo (Ken Marino, who also wrote the screenplay), is more firmly tied down to the area by the responsibilities he has as husband and father to an ever-expanding brood of undisciplined children. The remainder of the quartet consists of Jack (Ron Eldard), a devil-may-care womanizer, who becomes romantically involved with Hunt's thirty-six year old divorced sister, Gina (Maura Tierney); and Cons (Josh Hamilton), a perpetually stoned pseudo-hippie philosopher who, of all the characters, seems most in tune with the drug culture loopiness of the period in which the movie is set. In addition to Gina, the women in their lives include Lozo's levelheaded but eternally frustrated wife, Julie (Sarah Paulson), and Zoe (Lauren Ambrose from "Six Feet Under"), a pretty young woman from Manhattan who has a brief summertime flirtation with Hunt.

Written by Marino and directed by Katherine Dieckmann, "Diggers" is so low-keyed in its attitude and tone that it may feel to some viewers as if nothing much really happens in the film. Yet, in many ways, this is the major selling-point of the movie - that it doesn't feel obligated to make big dramatic gestures to unravel its characters or maintain our interest. Marino and Dieckmann have a nice feel for the rhythms of life, as everyday, casual moments are given equal weight with major, life-altering events - the death of a parent, the announcement of a pregnancy, the final farewell to a dearly departed.

If there is a flaw in the film, it is that the movie is simply too short (a mere 89 minutes) to allow for the kind of plot expansion and probing character development we rightfully expect from a work of this sort. In fact, due primarily to the time constraints, two of the buddies, Jack and Cons, are reduced to little more than minor characters in the overall fabric of the story. An additional half hour or so in the running time would have gone a long way towards correcting that problem. As compensation, the director exploits to the full the bucolic richness of the unfamiliar setting, and captures the laid-back quality of an era in which the youthful idealism of an earlier time has all but evaporated in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate. The movie also touches on the threat of creeping globalization as these family-run clam-digging operations are beginning to be squeezed out of business by an impersonal conglomeration that has recently moved into the area. Through Lozo's character, in particular, the movie effectively dramatizes the stress and strain working-class couples and families go through when they are living literally paycheck to paycheck, along with the compromises they are forced to make just to keep their heads above water.

Rudd, who has long been underrated as an actor, provides a beautifully understated performance as the soul-searching Hunt, and he is superbly abetted by the other members of the cast.

More anecdote than full-fledged narrative, "Diggers" has the benefit of not taking itself or its characters too seriously. It presents its story in a naturalistic, matter-of-fact manner, without fanfare and fuss and devoid of high-minded sermons or heavy-breathing lectures. "Diggers" is the very definition of self-effacing film-making.

This is a dramatic comedy. That's it. It's a great fun story about a handful of friends trying to survive in a small blue collar town. It's funny and heart warming.

Capturing a bit of Americana, a parcel of life foreign in nature to our own, has offered the opportunity to appreciate the diversity of living and of people in this country populated by ordinary yet extraordinary beings. Films that have focused on little family ventures ('Mystic Pizza'-type films) make us examine our own niche and grow to love variations on a single theme. DIGGERS, as written by Ken Marino (who also stars), is just such a story, a window on the life of clam diggers in the shores off Long Island. Yet as directed by Katherine Dieckmann and acted by a particularly fine cast, DIGGERS addresses the changes that occur in each of us as we progress from teenagers to adults - and all the potentially crippling and thrilling factors that can and do arise.

Four friends who dig for clams as their families have done for generations interact on levels of levity and anger, support and misunderstanding, and woven through the background of these four men's lives are the women (and children) who influence them. The apparently disparate men include wannabe photographer Hunt (Paul Rudd), procreator Lozo (Ken Marino), druggie philosopher Cons (Josh Hamilton), and womanizer Jack (Ron Eldard). Their lives intersect on many levels: the women in their lives - Hunt's needy divorced sister Gina (Maura Tierney) who after their father's death falls for Jack, Hunt's 'summer girlfriend' Zoey (Lauren Ambrose), and Lozo's constantly pregnant wife Julie (Sarah Paulson) - and the changes in the entire business of clamming rights as big business steps into the water. How these characters cope with the static that jars their day-to-day existence may seem small in importance to an outsider, but by the end of the film, we 'the outsiders' have grown to know and appreciate and love this little band of fellow beings.

The cast displays excellent ensemble acting and while the film has its rough edges, so does the little corner of the world described. It is a quiet little film, all the more beautiful for being so unpretentious. Grady Harp