'Diggers' is a tragicomic tale of a dying industry

Katherine Dieckmann's film takes place in late 1976 , as a corporate behemoth named South Shell is buying up water rights and restricting the local clammers to areas long played out. The four friends who are trying to keep the old ways going are Hunt (Paul Rudd ), who'd never admit he's a gifted photographer; ladies' man Jack (Ron Eldard ); stoner philosopher Cons (Josh Hamilton ); and Lozo (screenwriter Ken Marino ), who's married with five kids and another on the way.

"Diggers" isn't sentimental about these men or their way of life. Their greeting of choice is an upraised middle finger, and when Hunt's cantankerous father (Scott Sowers ) dies of heart failure out on the flats, Dieckmann films it obliquely, with a minimum of fuss. The old man is buried in his wedding suit and his waders, and he probably wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

The filmmakers have great fun with the trappings of the time period, from a diner waitress reading "The Hite Report " to Lozo's young son begging to see "Jaws " ("The shark gets blown up at the end," his father snaps . "There, you saw it . ") to the Jordache jeans on a chic young Manhattanite named Zoe (Lauren Ambrose of "Six Feet Under ") with whom Hunt silently flirts whenever he runs his boat past her parents' dock.

Also particular to this time and place is the smell of cannabis-infused fatalism. The characters get high to avoid thinking about the obvious -- everyone except Cons; pot just makes him more engaged -- but also because it's 1976 and they're on Long Island and they're bored. "Diggers" is acrid with all sorts of fumes: oil and bilge water, bog-funk and fish guts, the smoldering tinder of class resentment. Jimmy Carter's infamous "malaise" is right here, in these houses and on these boats, and the only way to deal with it is to laugh, smoke a joint, have sex, and not think about tomorrow.