I write, not just for a Maine newspaper, but a central Maine newspaper, where most folks love lobster but with prices soaring, can’t afford it. We know zip about the craft but come to stories about it with open eyes and hearts.

This week I’ve been assigned to write about “The Ghost Trap” a film that will open 27th Maine Film Festival on Wednesday, July 17.

It’s based on the novel of the same name, by K. Stephens, was directed by James Khanlarian, in his directorial debut is a young fellow who looks to this reviewer as someone who certainly knows and loves what he’s doing. It always helps. It’s engaging, professional and easy on the eyes. Treat it with respect.

His film happens to be set in the lobster business, about which I know less about than space travel. But I used to work in the movie world which I loved and I’m always happy to see one as well written and directed as this one.

Khanlarian is lucky to have one set on the sea and Maine coast that is splendidly photographed by cinematographer artists Matthias Schubert and Michael P. Tedford. It is really well made, carved by caring and professional hands and is definitely worth your attention.

This is what I learned. A lot of folks go down to the sea each morning in the season to search for a beloved emblem of Maine, not often found on the dinner table of Maine workers — the imperial lobster.

This one is not at all about lobsters of course but about the men and women of the sea, who work on dangerous looking crafts, stand perilously close to falling in, and lower wicked looking baskets called traps, into the sea to catch … yes, lobsters.

I learned this as well:

A Ghost Trap is “a working trap that is lowered in the water, catches and holds lobsters but is cut off. With its line severed, no longer connected to the buoy bobbing at the water’s surface it becomes a ghost trap, unseen, lost and then forgotten.” Wow! Did I get that right?

Writer/director Khanlarian goes down to his sea each day, not to film a documentary about lobster traps, which wouldn’t last long on Netflix, but about the dilemma of one lobsterman, Jamie Eugley, (Zak Steiner “White Men Can’t Jump”), who is a serious film actor with a bright future. Here, he’s a good guy, a young hero battled with enemies like wealthy yachters and sadly, friends who are unhappily misinformed lobstermen and yachters in Polo shirts who don’t fancy lobster boats in their blue Maine waters.

Steiner, clearly a talented and tested actor, carves his love for his girl Anja (Greer Grammer) with gentleness, especially when after a rogue wave hits his boat knocking Anja into the water and putting her in hospital with a serious brain injury.

But being folks of the sea, their love holds on.

The title “The Ghost Trap” I should rush to say, is a bit misleading. It’s no spook fable, and not even a documentary about lobster fishing, any more than Hemingway’s “To Have and Have Not” is about the boat rental business.

It’s a movie about a group of interesting characters played by newcomers and veterans who happened to work in the lobster fishing business and are caught up in a “trap war” with a rival lobstering family.

Like Hemingway’s tale, It’s a well-written tale about duplicity, jealousy and trying to get through the day and to make a buck in hard times, like Hemingway’s Harry Morgan, like you and me.

That always works when it’s written clearly and put together properly by gifted trained hands, as is James Khanlarian’s wonderful voyage into the choppy seas of Hollywood.

New drama/thriller stars Zak Steiner (“Euphoria”), Greer Grammer (“Deadly Illusions”), Sarah Catherine Hook (“First Kill,” “White Lotus”), and Steven Ogg (“Westworld”).

“Ghost Trap” plays at 7 p.m.Wednesday, July 17, and at 6 p.m. Saturday, July 20.

J.P. Devine of Waterville is a former stage and screen actor.