Northern Borders

When the two veteran actors team up in Vermont writer-director Jay Craven’s wry, uneven Northern Borders, adapted from Howard Frank Mosher’s novel, they mesh so well they almost hold the rest of the movie together. But their nuanced performances underscore the weakness of the rest of the cast, and Craven’s erratic tonal shifts from the whimsical to the sentimental trip up the episodic plot.

It all adds up to somewhat less than the sum of its parts, but it's made palatable by the well-evoked rural atmosphere and the typically expert performances by the two leads.

Mr. Dern is fine in his crotchety-old-man mode, but the rest of the acting is labored, and the story is an unfocused mishmash.

It's easy to get lost in the natural beauty of Vermont, and Mosher (who worked on the film with several students as part of a Marlboro College program) clearly takes joy in doing so. The liveliest counterpart to that striking landscape isn't Dern, but rather Jessica Hecht as his wayward daughter, who hits all the grace notes the rest of the film tends to miss.