In “Hide Away,” Josh Lucas plays an alcoholic widower who undergoes a spiritual rebirth by fixing up a sailboat, and I really wish he hadn’t.
Lucas plays Eddie, a mysterious loner who is initially seen with his wife and kid in a hazy soft-focus scene. Then, abruptly, he buys and moves aboard a beaten-up old sailboat that he gradually renovates, with much making of sad faces and epic boozing. I momentarily cheered up when I thought the movie might be over (he tumbles into the water), but alas, he is rescued by a crusty old tar (James Cromwell), who is actually identified in the credits as “the ancient mariner.” The oldster will go on to furnish fatherly spirit-repairing advice such as, “Bagpipes can save a man’s soul.”
The movie seems to think it’s building up massive suspense by not telling us our hero’s back story, but given that the wife and kid aren’t around and he keeps telling people who ask that he’s not divorced, it’s obvious they’re dead. The only mystery, then, is what exactly happened to them. The answer is: nothing interesting. The character’s redemption, helped along by a kindly waitress (Ayelet Zurer), is so obvious, earnest and banal that, though the movie is barely an hour and a quarter before the credits, it feels like it would be faster to go out and fix up a boat yourself.