This small independent film was shot on a shoestring budget and it is set in Wisconsin's beautiful Door County, where Tony Shalhoub has family connections. In fact, this film features several other Shalhoub family members as costars besides Tony, who portrays an oddball Door County Sheriff. Michael Matzdorff, another Wisconsinite related to Shalhoub, directed the movie from a script that he wrote about a Los Angeles author and illustrator of children's books who is suffering from a severe case of writer's block. 

This is a small film with a big heart. While it lacks somewhat in production values and occasionally features some rather stilted acting, it more than makes up for these flaws with the captivating chemistry of a burgeoning love affair between a big city author played by Ross Partridge and a very lovely small town waitress played by Kathryn Aselton. Add to that Tony Shalhoub as a quirky sheriff along with being a protective dad and the wonderful actor Barry Corbin as an appealing and likable granddad, and I had more than enough to please me. In addition, I had the bonus of seeing a movie that was largely filmed in Ellison Bay, Wisconsin, a village which I dearly love as I happen to have a home there.

Joe Peterson (Ross Partridge) is scraping along the bottom of the economic barrel in a dingy, colorless apartment that he shares with his best friend, JP (Michael Chernus). The economic success of his first book has long ago worn off, and now the publisher is demanding that he return the advance for his second book, money that is long gone. His pet goldfish that had served as his muse has failed to provide him with any inspiration for his new book. All the goldfish has done lately besides swim around in its bowl is irritate Lorraine (Vanessa Branch), Joe's upscale girlfriend. Every time she visits his apartment she is reminded of how infantile and ludicrous the whole situation is with a grown man staring at a goldfish bowl all day long hoping for something to click in his head.

What JP wants to click in Joe's head is the idea of returning to his family summer home back in Door County, Wisconsin, and take part in the Polar Bear plunge into frozen Lake Michigan on Christmas Day. (This actually happens every year on New Year's Day, and as many as 1,000 crazed lunatics, er, people participate!) 

Maybe a change of scenery will give Joe the inspiration he needs. Lorraine provides the catalyst, so soon Joe and JP are landing on the snow-covered tarmac at the airport in Sturgeon Bay. There an airport shuttle awaits to drive them north to Ellison Bay, a small village at the northern tip of the Peninsula. JP has only recently come into his family home, which was formerly owned by the Andersen family, and Sheriff Andersen (Tony Shalhoub) feels no compunction against dropping in at all hours of the day to check on this transplant from the West Coast. 

While having lunch at the Viking Grill in Ellison Bay, Joe strikes up a conversation with a comely waitress whom the local ladies at the counter recommend highly, noting that she is single. She turns out to be Sif Andersen (Kathryn Aselton), and in a further coincidence the Sheriff turns out to be her dad. Needless to say, Sheriff Andersen does not cotton to the idea of a stranger whom no one knows romancing his daughter. However, Sif has a mind of her own, so she will have a thing or two to say about that. 

Then in short order Joe and JP meet one of the local legends, Axel Andersen (Barry Corbin), who just happens to be the sheriff's dad and Sif's grandfather. Sheriff Andersen has a strained relationship with both his dad and his daughter, and now Joe is caught in their troubled family dynamics as he grows increasingly attracted to Sif. He will eventually have to decide between this lovely local lass and the equally lovely Lorraine, his big city girlfriend back in California. 

My only other complaint about this movie is that I wish that the filming had taken in more of the majesty of Door County, even in winter. Too many of the shots were "close in," and there were no scenes of the quaint lakeside villages or of the spectacularly beautiful cliff and lakeside landscapes. 92 minutes and unrated.