1997 — Floating

A young man named Van (Norman Reedus of The Walking Dead fame) is stuck in a dead-end life while his friends are at college because he has to stay behind to take of his alcoholic paraplegic father (Will Lyman of PBS Frontline fame). Their year-round lakeside cabin is across the water from the house he grew up in–and that his mom sold after she left the family in the lurch.

Into that cabin moves Doug (Chad Lowe of “My Brother is Rob Lowe” fame) and his family. Turns out that Doug is a college swimmer and Van was a high school swimmer, and the two of them become friends. In an effort to fit in with new friends and to act out against his hard-ass dad, Doug, who is gay, falls in with Van and his two small-time drug dealing, weed smoking, house robbing pals. It doesn’t turn out to be Doug’s best choice.

The low-budget movie was filmed in Concord, according to IMDB. Other than a very few subtle visual cues that tip off that they are in Massachusetts, the film could be set on any lake surrounded by summer homes. One consistently distracting undercurrent: Van and Chad and many of the characters are around 20 years old, as they are home for the summer after their first year of college (or in Van’s case, out of high school). Yet the actors playing them are both 27 or so years old. And they look it. One other note: this movie includes Casey Affleck’s in one of his earliest roles, as a preppy college student.