This low key charmer from first time Australian director Anna Reeves is an engaging ensemble piece about finding one’s niche while navigating the murky, overlapping complexities of life. From her own screenplay, Reeves crafts a warm film suggesting that self-confidence, the help of community and family, plus a little luck recovering from one’s mistakes doesn’t hurt the chances of making it. Set in the exotic place where their European ancestry came to survive or perish, the rugged individualism in the bloodline of this collection of crusty and appealing characters is evident.

Outsider Jack Flange (Alex O’Lachlan) comes up from Sydney and lands a job as a seasonal hand on Skippy’s oyster farm. Jack’s got a sister in need of serious health care as she recovers from a car accident and a scheme for some easy money. His simple plan involves a homemade mask crafted of fruit roll-ups and an armored car. When the plan goes awry, he switches his focus during the season of oyster harvest and little by little finds a place to hang his hat.

O’Lachlan as Jack is a hunk with the roguish charm of a young Albert Finney, and Diana Glenn as his love interest also evokes the good/bad girls of Tom Jones. Jack Thompson (Breaker Morant, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) as Skippy is splendid as a stubborn farm boss and estranged husband. His partnership with his father are but one of the family pairings whose relationships shift and gel in the hardworking, hard playing atmosphere of the disappearing lifestyle in the Hawkesbury River oyster farms north of Sydney. Add the versatile Kerry Armstrong (Lantana) as Skippy’s feisty wife, veteran Jim Norton (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) and several roles filled by local non-actors, and the result is a delightful, low key film filled with authenticity and affection.

An ode to the natural beauty and to the people of this sheltered region where development is fast encroaching, the big wide screen treatment of cinematographer Alun Bollinger makes fine use of his work on Lord of the Rings and The Piano. His camera alternates between extreme close-ups to reveal character and expansive overhead shots that pull back to flaunt the wide unspoiled vistas that seem to go on forever.

Oysters - shucking, coddling, harvesting, are the raison d’être along the waterways and their razor sharp shells with sweet, soft insides serve as a metaphor for the yielding hearts of the people underneath their gruff exteriors. The regular, even beat of the unhurried story is underlined by gentle guitar strings in the score and the soft landing at the conclusion leaves one feeling tranquil and satisfied.