Often in films, we see people devastated by grief. A little later, we see the same people heroically pull themselves together and get on with it. Part of that has to do with the requirements of narrative, yet a larger part of that has to do with the belief that the grieving process is one where we feel sad for a bit, then shake it off.

Not everyone responds that way. Grief is overwhelming, and I know a little something about that. When I was in college, my father died quite suddenly from a heart attack. A month later, Alzheimer’s finally took my grandmother. After that, things like going to class and completing assignments became a virtual impossibility. Everything was simply too much for me. Why didn’t I ask for help? It’s tricky to do that when you don’t know what kind of help you need. It’s possible my school had resources, but I was unaware of them. Instead, I floundered. I dropped out of college. The trajectory of my life changed in ways that were both positive and negative.

As I’m sure you can imagine, this is not something I discuss often. I’ve found that not a lot of people can relate to that mindset. So imagine my surprise to discover the new indie dramedy Pools, and saw my situation mirrored so completely.

It’s summer in Chicago, and it’s swelteringly hot. Kennedy (Odessa A’zion) is a college student in the ritzy Chicago suburb of Lake Forest. Barely a student, I should say. After the passing of her father, Kennedy feels adrift. Before his death, she had earned a scholarship and carried a 4.0. Now, though, it’s Fs all the way down. 

Kennedy’s advisor Miss Lewis (Suzanne Cryer) sees potential in the young woman, and is sympathetic to her grief. She makes Kennedy a deal; go to class tomorrow. Keep going. Do homework. Put your head down and get through this. In return, the school will pretend that Kennedy’s previous catastrophic semester never happened and provide her with a clean slate. If Kennedy doesn’t hold up her end of the deal, she’ll lose the scholarship and face expulsion.

Does Kennedy deal with her grief by going to therapy, finding the joy of accomplishing her studies or one hundred other positive strategies? She does not. Instead, Kennedy gathers together her eclectic group of friends. They are Reed (Mason Gooding), a friendly fitness nut, Delaney (Ariel Winter), Reed’s ex and formerly Kennedy’s bestie, Shane (Francesca Noel), Delaney’s roomie who harbors a massive crush on Reed, and Blake (Tyler Alvarez), a serious med student who harbors sympathy and a crush on Kennedy.

Kennedy’s plan, such as it is, is to send Reed to get booze. He returns with a basket full of travel size bottles of Malört. Next, the group begins an odyssey. They’ll break into the homes of the wealthy to use their pools and cool off. They’ll also evade enraged homeowners, reckon with their group dynamics, and in Kennedy’s case, figure out the rest of her life from the bottom of a pool. 

Pools is the feature directorial debut of Sam Hayes, and he does a hell of a lot more right than wrong with his filmmaking. He’s got a great sense of pacing, and even the more reflective scenes never bog down the film. It’s true that the energy is higher and tighter in the first half, but that’s by design. Hayes also has a great eye, and there are numerous glittering underwater shots of considerable power. I was less in love with a framing device involving a cardboard standee that acts as an omniscient narrator. It’s one of those ideas that’s funnier in theory than it is in practice. Still, moments like that are rare, and the majority of the filmmaking is tight.

Hayes also wrote the script, and much like his direction, it works far more often than it doesn’t. It’s true that a few of the jokes either land with a thud or drag on longer than they should. A subplot involving an air conditioning technician (Michael Vlamis) who unexpectedly provides Kennedy with clarity could have been woven into the main plot a bit more smoothly. And yet, when the script drills down into who these people are and the emotions they’re grappling with, it sings.*

If you saw Marty Supreme, and you should, you know that Odessa A’zion stole the film from Timothee Chalamet – not an easy thing to do. My understanding is that Pools was made just before Marty Supreme, and it’s more proof that A’zion is blowing up for a reason. While she does good work selling Kennedy’s snark, that’s the easy part of her performance. The hard part is when she shows us the numbness of her grief, how it weighs her down like a wet blanket. While the rest of the cast does solid work, it’s Michael Vlamis as the HVAC tech Michael who matches A’zion with an interesting performance of his own. Michael isn’t played as a joke. He’s someone who’s good at his job, understands its value, and who understands this point in his life. He’s a stranger, and just the right person for Kennedy to meet.

If the email from the publicist went into my spam file, or if I’d decided that I wasn’t feeling Pools, or made a dozen other choices, I never would have seen this film. I haven’t felt like anyone understood my experiences in such a bone deep way, but somehow Sam Hayes and his talented cast and crew did. It’s good that I felt that way. It’s better that the movie that caused those feelings is a solid one.

*I’m curious if Hayes ever saw the 1968 Burt Lancaster film The Swimmer, a strange and interesting film about the emptiness of upper-class America.

Tim Brennan Movie Critic

Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.