Small 'Islander' has a big heart

"Islander" is a drama about a rogue Maine lobsterman named Eben Cole (Thomas Hildreth ) who winds up in jail after an accident he provoked results in a fellow lobsterman's death. Eben was miffed about mainland fishermen setting traps in island waters. But the movie is not a tale of occupational woe told from the frontlines of lobster fishing. It's not the aquatic "Country" or "Places in the Heart." It's a small, plaintive, modestly made film about how one bad decision can wreck a life.

Directed by Ian McCrudden from a script he wrote with Hildreth, "Islander" focuses on Eben's emergence from jail after serving five years for manslaughter (he copped a plea). Before prison, Eben was a dark, serious sort. Solid in build, square in jaw, he had an air of danger. I wouldn't fish in his waters, even if those waters were the Atlantic Ocean -- everybody's Atlantic Ocean. I'd find somewhere else to place my traps.

After prison, his face is cleanly shaven. Could his hair be lighter, too? Or is it that there's no hat creating an intimidating shadow? It doesn't matter. The island is small, and Eben is persona non grata. He can't get work. He can't see his daughter. He can't get a beer.

Plus, everyone's moved on without him. His father (Larry Pine , gone too soon) has died. And his tough ex-wife (Amy Jo Johnson ) has hardened into a brittle smoker who's married an insensitive rival lobsterman (Mark Kiely ) -- for the security. But it start s looking less grim thanks to the trust of a crusty lobsterman (the great Philip Baker Hall ) who offers Eben a lowly spot on his boat. Eben's daughter (Emma Ford ) even begins to tolerate her father.

"Islander" is warm and heartfelt in ways that excuse some of the filmmaking's inadequacies. The digital photography is shaky, the movie's rhythm never settles, and the acting is inconsistent. Johnson, for instance, is so good before Eben goes away, but subsequently does a one-note riff on the embittered wife. The writing, also, leans on a kind of predictability that seems to owe more to a lack of imagination than the reality that the island is only yea big.

Yet prison makes Hildreth a better actor. The remorseful longing, humility, and pride appear to come from deep inside him. When a piece of unwanted political art cuts him above the eye as he tosses it into a dumpster (I know, I know), you feel that this man has suffered enough, though not enough to deserve the cloying romantic interest of the doctor (Judy Prescott ) who stitches him up. (If only Eben could hear the gyno-folk oozing from her car stereo.)

Hildreth is the movie's anchor, but so is its sense of local authenticity. Regionalism is sometimes dismissed as provincial. But isn't it expansive? McCrudden shows us a convincing slice of life in a part of the world we rarely get to see in movies. One reason that "Islander" is playing beyond Maine, where it's been a small sensation, is that Eben's quest for redemption is utterly human. The story is as old as the sea. Don't let the preponderance of galoshes fool you. This could be a Western.

Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com. For more on movies, go to boston.com/ae/movies/blog.