Judging by appearances, Dean is doing fine. He’s a successful graphic designer with a tastefully furnished apartment in Los Angeles. In his early 40s, he’s stylish, fit, well groomed — the model urban homosexual male. But when Dean opens his email inbox one night to find an out-of-the-blue message from an ex, his deeply rooted dissatisfaction with his life begins to rise to the surface.

A hesitantly rekindled correspondence with Alex, who disappeared without a trace (or even a goodbye) after an incandescent summer fling 15 years earlier, eventually leads to an invitation to a weekend at Dean’s rustic retreat in the Southern California desert. Alex arrives with the air of a self-assured, free-spirited man of the world, though it soon becomes clear that he harbors his share of doubt and regret as well. What begins as a passionate second-chance fling inevitably turns into an emotionally charged rehashing of their long-ago romance, as both men grapple with the decisions that have led them to this point.

Set amidst starlit swimming pools and the luminous Joshua Tree landscape, Lazy Eye features assured, naturalistic performances from its two handsome leads, Lucas Near-Verbrugghe and Aaron Costa Ganis. The sharply observed script and sensitive direction are both by Tim Kirkman, director of Loggerheads (Frameline29) and Dear Jesse (Frameline22), who in this grown-up film explores one of the most intractable questions of middle age — whether turning back to the past is ever a viable way to move forward.