Emmy Award-winning Writer/director Trevor Hawkins’ debut narrative feature “Lotawana” is a cautionary love letter to wandering.

When the detached sailor (Todd Blubaugh’s greyhound lean, bohemian Forrest) encounters a beautiful and curious outsider (Nicola Collie’s Everly) on a brief supply run, they strike up a dizzying romance. Intoxicated by the fantasy of creating an untethered life together, they rebel against the confines of contemporary existence. Hawkins dazzling magic hour photography and command of high paced, music video-style montage (featuring a terrific original score from Ryan Pinkston) has you soaking in their endless summer love; with the inference of winter and the consequences of real-life coming on the horizon.

Set on the Missouri Lake Lotawana, Hawkins creates a captivating love letter to freedoms of fringe life. Shot afloat and on location, the sense of everything the place has to offer is so welcome in the world so enveloped by the convenience of digital duplicity.

Set now, the longer the film progresses, the more cold water is poured to extinguish the prospect of this endless wandering. Pondering futures requires money, requires insurance, requires security (a dwelling that opportunistic thieves cannot swipe). In some ways, it distils the lie of an egalitarian American experience of decades past. The film’s gaze wanders to the shoreline as the film progresses and begins to see the husks of unoccupied (or rarely occupied) lakeside mansions as the constant reminders of wealth disparity between the modest ‘seat of the pants’ lifestyle of the central couple. The temptation to peek into those homes, as aspirations, is strong.

Hawkins (who also edits, colours and photographs “Lotawana”) shifts the tones of the film to reflect the emotional lives of the characters. The opening stanza of the film operates like a hazy summer reverie. The middle stanza, featuring an existential crisis for the characters, sees the colour drained from the world - snow-covered shores and ice-covered lakes, pitch-black campsites and the lifeless sanitised hospital rooms. The final stanza chases the dragon, desperate to recreate the feeling of the place that brought them together.

Blubaugh and Collie are the myopic focus of the film, occupying almost every moment of the 97-minute runtime. The organic chemistry between the two actors, their playfulness and growing authentic intimacy on screen is engrossing, and you find yourself rooting for them to overcome the metaphoric rough seas ahead. However, the most intense dramatic moments of the film - which I won’t spoil, momentarily evade the performers. It’s the one time in Forrest and Ellie’s journey together that grates.

Hawkins captures Collie’s entrancing beauty that feels like he’s imbuing the lens with the downhill momentum of falling in love. Collie’s Everly is slippery, hard to pin down. Is she there for good or a good time? Hawkins addresses Forrest’s motivations in silences around Collie’s questions about the future. The pregnant pauses are loaded with whispers, “is there something you’re running from?”

However much you feel the inevitable turbulence for the characters bearing down on you, “Lotawana” is desperate to stay in the now. And I found the questions best unanswered.

★★½/★★★★

TVOD release on all major platforms February 22, 2022. With a short theatrical run in February in Los Angeles.