Swimming

This third theatrical feature by writer/director Robert J. Siegel refutes the glib assertion that those who can't do, teach. An associate professor of film at Purchase College, Siegel shows a deft touch with actors and a quietly assured sense of how to allow a story to develop without formulaic contrivances or cheap melodramatics. The Wheeler family's oceanfront Myrtle Beach, S.C., diner has served generations of vacationers, and when the senior Wheelers retired to Arizona they passed it on to tomboyish Frankie (Lauren Ambrose) and her older brother, Neil (John Pais). The siblings also co-own the house in which they were raised, but Neil is married and the father of ...