Michael and Mark Polish's Northfork takes place in a mid-'50s America that exists only in dreams, celluloid and otherwise. Visually and thematically, it's located somewhere next to David Lynch Land, a dreamscape of angels and Chevrolets, Eisenhower-era innocence and Fellini-esque surrealism. Here, that milieu faces imminent obsolescence in the form of a disaster of Old Testament proportions that promises to turn the entire town of Northfork into a watery grave. To prepare for the looming catastrophe, the government has sent out a battalion of evacuation experts who suggest guardian angels masquerading as faceless bureaucrats. As the experts–including James Woods, Peter Coyote, and Mark Polish–set about convincing the last few stragglers to depart before the great flood, a cherubic, sickly little boy (Duel Farnes) tries to secure a way out of Northfork by convincing a surreal quartet of eccentrics that he's a real angel. It all sounds precious and pretentious, and it does begin that way, but the film grows singularly impressive as it goes along. Every image in Northfork is as carefully composed as a still-life painting. Initially, it's about as lively as one, too, but the film's portentous, almost suffocating quality loosens as it proceeds, giving way to surprising heart, humor, and meditation on the death of a certain way of American life. Stunningly shot by cinematographer M. David Mullen, Northfork benefits from a uniformly stellar cast dominated by father-and-son evacuation team James Woods and Mark Polish, as well as Nick Nolte, who brings a sad grace to the small-but-pivotal role of Northfork's spiritual leader. With their third film, the Polish brothers find their authorial voice, resulting in a lyrical work whose free-floating Lynchian weirdness coalesces into an unexpectedly touching movie.