Tim Kirkman’s Loggerheads

Loggerheads is a time twisting symbolic tale about finding again the familial love you abandoned or let go of years ago. It is a story told in three parts that interweave only to finally connect at its’ climax – after it’s too late. The past, present and future are compressed into one story line leaving you asking the question of what could have been only if the characters’ timing were right. This is Loggerheads’ most noteworthy accomplishment.

A son, Mark, has been on the road, prostituting himself, since he ran away from his adoptive parents, a stern minister and his wife, Elizabeth, and the cliché town of Eden, an all American neighborhood with white picketed homes, where he grew up. Stopping at Kure Beach to track the return of the Loggerhead turtles, turtles that return to that shore at this time of the year to reproduce, he finds himself amidst the hospitality of George, a local motel owner who offers him a place to stay. In return Mark offers himself to George but George refuses, showing the first signs of a love filled with respect. Mark tells George that he has AIDS and he is dying. They slowly open themselves up to each other as the story progresses. Back in Eden, Elizabeth is missing her son, who she let run away because he was gay and that is unacceptable there. Mother’s Day is coming up and as she begins to talk to her husband about their son and she realizes that her husband is cold and bound to the word of God. She on the other hand can’t escape the loving feelings of motherhood. Grace, Mark’s biological mother who put him up for adoption when he was born, is also unable to bury her own feelings of motherhood. She finds out that finding her son is not as easy as it might seem because his records are in North Carolina where the law won’t allow her to find out where he is. They are all searching for each other and waiting to meet again, somehow and in someway it might be possible.

The story interweaves at the right places, leaving you wanting to know what is coming next when the story returns. The emotions seem to build at the same time and the possibility of closure for the characters is eminent. The symbolism in Loggerheads verges on the obvious. Let’s start with the namesake, the loggerhead turtle is a type of “at risk of endangerment” turtle that returns to its’ natal shore to reproduce years later after being away during its’ ‘lost years” – the years the turtle spends out at sea. Where exactly the turtles spend their “lost years” is still a mystery. These themes of being lost and of returning home are symbolic of the characters and the situations they are in. There is no mystery there and there leaves no room for interpretation. The story also takes place during that holiday that reminds us all of are dear mothers, Mother’s Day. There is no need to go into depth there as well. The whole world Mark left behind really is one big cliché, from the minister who looks at homosexuality as ungodly, the wife who keeps up with the jones, the neighbor who likes to shock her “holy” neighbors and of course the white picketed fences. That whole world was an invented one, unlike the story of Grace and her search for her son which is based on a true story.

The three leads carry the story through a range of emotions. Kip Pardue from Remember the Titans and Thirteen plays Mark as a victim of a wayward life, unable to connect to his past, who is lost in the present and with no future ahead of him. Tess Harper plays Elizabeth as a character in a parable who grows throughout the story little by little as the things around her open her up to the truth. Bonnie Hunt plays the role of Grace as an immature woman who still lives with her own mother, unable to grow because of the love she abandoned.

Tim Kirkman on set.

Tim Kirkman, the writer/director, had met the woman who became the inspiration for the character of Grace while working on Dear Jesse his 1996 feature length documentary about Senator Jesse Helms. Tim heard the biological mother’s story and wanted to make a documentary about it, but unable to get it going he decided to write it as his first fiction script based around this story. Tim had access to the journals of adopted son that the real mother retrieved after his death and he used it while developing the character of Mark. When asked about his casting choices, he donates all the credit to Cindy Tolan, the casting director who he said got the script to right people. Having explored the filmmaking via documentary film prior to his first fiction film added to his comfort level, but just to ensure that the production ran smoothly, Tim storyboarded everything helping his crew see exactly what he was looking for. They shot the film is 22 days in areas he was very familiar with in North Carolina, where he was born and raised. Tim is currently adapting the novel Family Linens by Lee Smith.

Loggerheads gets released in New York and Los Angeles via Strand Releasing on October 14th, followed by a wider release.