The winner, however, has died of joy upon hearing of his good fortune and everyone knows that a corpse cannot collect a cash payout. So these two scamps embark on a plan to impersonate the dead winner and claim the cash. But in a town this small, nothing stays secret for long and soon everyone is involved in various kinds of deception, bringing old rivalries and long-kept secrets to life again. The skill of the film, written and directed by Kirk Jones, is that the plot is of secondary interest. His real delight is in the people, these island dwellers who have been honed by the weather and life's little obstacles into tough, wily survivors.
Every character registers on screen as an interesting person.
She's a minor figure. We glimpse her dreamily humming, but you just know that there's a whole life story there that would be fascinating to hear. But no one is more charming than the two leads. Bannen and Kelly greet this script as if it were a winning lottery ticket, playing these rogues with such skill and wit that you wish you could watch them for hours. The same richness and precision is evident in the plot, which ties up every loose strand into an dainty bow.