Surfwise

How can a freethinking father mandate his ideals without violating them? Pray covers it all, and movingly so.

It's a fascinating patchwork.

Pray maintains a steadfastly objective viewpoint, and it's a testament to his film's success that it can accommodate the audience's inevitably shifting allegiances from one family member to the next.

Filmmaker Pray, who is building an impressive body of documentaries on American subcultures, including the Seattle grunge scene in "Hype," graffiti artists in "Infamy" and truckers in "Big Rig," does an admirable job of allowing his subjects to represent themselves.

Insightful, free-roaming but tautly constructed.

Pray unfolds the family's story with patience and skill, making it both a compliment and a complaint to say that he leaves us wanting to know much more.

Whether you call this a Rousseau-ian paradise or "Capturing the Friedmans" by the Sea will depend on where you stand on hippie living--up to a point.