The film is a meditation on fear, or perhaps apprehension, centring on the relationships between disparate characters in a dying Alaskan town, all of whom seem to share a condition of uncertainty about their lives and their future. Rather like in The Wages of Fear , the first half of this film is concerned with establishing a condition of desperation, the second is a sort of catharsis in which the stakes are upped and the threats become less cerebral. At a socialite wedding, local businessmen discuss the commodification of the great outdoors and propose to turn Alaska into a giant theme park where danger is contained and controlled to give people the illusion of fear without the threat to life. The quality of life itself is in question here. The town seems gripped by anxiety and premonitions of death.
Local workers discuss friends taken by the sea or who have given up on life.
A former fisherman battles with a pair of Seattle Lesbian lawyers to regain control of his boat. As plates of elaborate fish dinners are served in restaurants, the local Salmon cannery goes through its final hours with a ceremonial disinfecting which wipes away its past, its present, and its future. Things take an abrupt turn into adventure thriller in the second half as for reasons best left to a viewing, they and Mastrantonio's equally troubled teenage daughter Vanessa Martinez find themselves stranded on an uninhabited island pursued by malevolent forces. It sounds like a sudden shift of pace, but Sayles handles it beautifully. The second half becomes an extrapolation of the themes and conflicts established in the early stages, and as real danger presses down upon the trio, they face both fear and themselves in mostly understated and restrained ways atypical of the genre but perfectly in tune with the rest of the movie.