Personal tenderness combines with a good sense of composition and a naturalistic storytelling style to give a small, familiar premise a nice lilt.

While there's something undeniably fascinating about the way "Fairhaven" repeatedly avoids predictable payoffs for portentous dramatic setups, narrative momentum is conspicuous by its absence.

O'Brien and his castmates seem to play loose with his script a bit more than they should in an effort to give the material a lived-in feeling.