Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

It's a quiet movie. The motor on a sailboat is called an iron genny not an iron spinnaker as Lucas refers to it in the movie. Genny comes from the word genoa which is a sail, like a jib, only it's leach extends aft of the mast. Also, no sailor spins the dock lines in a spiral like Lucas does. That's a stupid habit of power boaters. Anyway, I watched because I like sailing. Not much to glean about sailing though from this movie. The point of the moving has nothing to do with sailing. I liked it though because Lucas was trying to find the answers at the bottom of the bottle. I can appreciate that. If I were to sink into a depression and come to grips with loss I'd make sure it was in a warm place. The Great Lakes are not a recommendation for a long sulking and healing.

Two excellent actors, Josh Lucas and James Cromwell, headline this deeply moving and interesting movie. It's a simple story of overwhelming guilt and grief. An intelligent executive who is reduced to a helpless shell of his former self through an extreme tragedy. It seems he has come to this semi isolated place in upper Michigan to blank out horrific memories and in the process even contemplates suicide more than once. Beautiful Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer, the waitress, feels his pain from afar but seemingly does not want to interfere and just watches during most of the movie.Being a hopeless romantic I am puzzled by two aspects of this movie. The first is the blond employee at the supermarket, Helen (Anne Faba). Having seen him at the supermarket a few times and apparently noticing how messed up he is, she comes to visit him one night and stays on the boat with him but sleeps in a separate compartment. She seems to have been abused and he comforts her. Nothing is ever explored with her beyond that instance. The second is when the waitress finally ventures down to his boat and climbs in bed with him to comfort him and to make love. Again, nothing is explored beyond that one time and for the rest of the movie they both seem as strangers to one another. He eventually sells the boat and returns to the big city (I'm thinking Chicago) where he worked and lived. He does not even say goodbye to anyone when he leaves.I would recommend this movie to people who are deep in their understanding of life and how we are each only one step away from tragedy every day in our lives. Although the dialog is limited the movie does move along going from one scene to another and one season to another rather quickly. I got cold just watching the fall turn into winter in upper Michigan.

well...lets see. i admit to being an avid movie-holic. (i am currently on a 12 frame program). i honestly don't know what movie the other people found in their DVD container. the only way i could rate this movie on the high end of the scale is to drop massive amounts of ecstasy and view the entire film through rainbow colored glasses. what an insult to waste the talents of such experienced good solid actors with this drivel. i am the first to admit that the cinematography was solid but most of it was a little too derivative. i would like to think i understand the concept of still photographic images on film, but after awhile it became rote and lost its initial impact. i pretty much had the film figured out in the first 10 minutes. (i did not know the car accident where the lead character loses his entire family was due to an illicit affair he was having.) just about everything that transpired was telegraphed way ahead like when you fighting someone that pulls their arm way back before they strike. don't get me wrong. i like thoughtful, insightful, quiet character driven movies. just don't mistake this leaden, draining, bloated jackwagon of a film as one of those kind. if i had a choice between watching this movie or paint drying, i would definitely go for the wall. if you are still not deterred from wasting any of your precious time and still wish to view this throughly turgid affair after reading this piece, don't forget to go to the hardware store first and pick up a few gallons....just in case.

A man arrives at a dock, in suit & tie and carrying his suitcase, buys a boat as-is, he seems haunted but we don't yet know why. If you've ever experienced deep grief or a need to hideaway and heal, this film will have a deeper meaning for you, if you've not yet experienced those tortured emotions in life you may not yet understand fully the emotional depths this film represents. I've been there, I am there, and felt the film all the more meaningful for my own experiences. The waterside setting is magical and the story plays against the backdrop of its setting (Traverse City, Michigan) and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, The Children's Hour, which given Longfellow's own sad history gives the film even deeper resonance. The typical Hollywood films you'll barely remember a month later but Hide Away will have a lasting impact and this, this, is the film you want to see this Summer. Best work I've seen from Josh Lucas and James Cromwell is, even more than usual, so very memorable as The Ancient Mariner. I'd originally rated this film an 8 but, after viewing it a second time, I changed my review to a 10. Now I'm left wondering what my own boat is...