The Lost Coast

The Lost Coast opens with an e-mail message that twentysomething Jasper (Ian Scott McGregor), sends to his fiancée Wendy (Sarah Nealis), in which he tells her about a camping trip he took with his friends Mark (Lucas Alifano) and Lily (Lindsay Benner) on Northern California's Lost Coast when they were in high school. The day before he composes the note, Jasper reunites with the former couple for Halloween in San Francisco's Castro district, where they join thousands of other revelers and eventually run into Mark's friend, Caleb (Chris Yule). During the course of the evening, Lily tells Caleb that Jasper and Mark used to “fool around” when they were younger, although the former now identifies as straight and the latter as gay. A quest to find the drug Ecstasy leads all four to a party, where Jasper and Mark's interactions—alternating between affection and aggression—suggest lingering unresolved feelings. Their behavior hearkens back to that earlier time in the coastal wilderness, scenes of which are interspersed with the contemporary narrative. Shot on digital video and set to a moody score, writer-director Gabriel Fleming's arthouse film effectively employs a seemingly simple story to explore the complexity of sexual repression. Recommended. (K. Fennessy)