A slight yet moving film about the lifelong search for a sense of family, THE SURFACE finds college student Evan Jones (Harry Hains) living a rather directionless life with moneyed boyfriend Chris (Nicholas McDonald) and quietly resenting being kept. Upset that Chris has bought expensive concert tickets as a joint gift from them to friend Michelle's (Samantha Bowling) birthday, Evan stops at a garage sale in search of something more personal and becomes fascinated with an 8mm camera. The camera's owner Harry (Robert E. Weiner), more confident than Evan that the younger man will use it ("You kids shoot use your phones to shoot HD video, then you try to make it look like old film"), sells it and a few rolls of film to him with the offer to give him the editing equipment and teach him how to use if after he has shot some footage. As Evan learns how to use the camera, he becomes obsessed with it, taking it along on a trip with Chris and their friends on a trip to the seaside. After having the rolls developed, he returns to Harry's house only to be informed by his forty-year-old son Peter (Michael Redford) that the old man has died. Peter gives Evan the editing equipment along with the family home movies to practice editing. Never having known his parents and shuffled through foster homes, Evan feels a sense of having missed a normal childhood in a family as he screens the films depicting Peter growing up. Evan starts getting to know Peter while helping him maintain his father's home as a part-time job. He edits a short film out of the home movies and submits it to his college's film festival. His friends are impressed but Peter is moved and disturbed by the memories stirred up by the images of himself and his childhood friend. Chris is less than pleased when Evan shows up late to the celebratory party he has organized after the festival in order to comfort Peter. The couple drift apart just as things heat up between Evan and Peter who has realized some things about himself and how he handled the death of his friend. Evan movies in with Peter and tries to fit into his world but doubt starts to set in as to whether his relationship with Peter is any different than it was with Chris and if he is trying to live vicariously through memories of a family he feels was lacking in his own life.