I really wanted to like this movie. I generally like coming-of-age movies, and surf movies, and growing-up-gay movies. But I found the characters in this movie (with a couple of exceptions) a bunch of unlikable louts who spend much of the movie in testosterone-driven chest-butting, and I just couldn't care about them. The loutishness leads to a certain predictable amount of melodrama, and some psychologically simplistic soul-searching on the way to tying up ends. The only likable characters were the protagonist's younger brother (the gay one, who takes a lot of psychological abuse for his gayness), and the sympathetic grandfather (the only guy in the family who seems to show any affection for the younger brother). These are secondary characters. The young brother's coming to terms with his sexuality and tentative romantic exploration with one of the surfers is a minor subplot of the film. On the up side, the young guys (and gals) in the film look great, and the surfing footage is really nice, especially some of the underwater footage. But by the end of the movie, I was not sorry to leave the company of a group of characters that I mostly found unpleasant and unsympathetic.
