3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Poolman

2023, Chris Pine (directorial debut) -- download

I have a thing for LA based on pop culture depictions, but not the big usual ones you would expect. Sure, the Griffith Observatory is cool looking, and Venice Beach is probably an experience, but I have always had a fondness for those long commercial strips with run down motels, usually depicted in washed out pastel colours, usually with more people living in them than staying the night. I am sure there is some movie(s) or TV from my deep youth that is the source of this fondness but my memory is of an age where it is more a vibe than it is anything.

Vibe. You are using that word a lot lately. What does it mean to you? When something feels right without an ability to articulate it, this is a "vibe" ?

Darren Barrenman (Chris Pine, Star Trek) lives in such a motel, more precisely he lives in a small trailer on the lot of such a motel. He is the pool man for a postage stamp sized pool that, based on its positioning, adjacent to his trailer, only he and his friends are likely to benefit from his constant care. Darren is one of those LA weirdoes also common in these movies, likely based on real life LA weirdoes. He's mostly in his own headspace, fancies himself a social activist trying to stomp on gentrification and save the iconic spots whatever his grotty part of LA / Hollywood is losing, even going so far as to send daily type-writer written letters to Erin Brocovich. He knows she is not Julia Roberts, that she is a real person, but he still has a picture of Julia Roberts, and not Erin Brocovich. 

Of note, it is also indicative of your pop culture education of LA in that you have no idea of the actual geography of LA, where anything is, in relation to anything else.

Darren makes regular trips to present in front of city council, usually with an entourage of other LA weirdoes, including his friends (a little ditty about) Jack (Danny DeVito, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and Diane (Annette Benning, Being Julia), Diane being Darren's therapist and Jack trying to do a documentary about Darren. Darren is just a pain in the ass to city council. They also live in the motel. He never makes much of an impression, beyond annoyance.

Then Darren meets June Del Rey (DeWanda Wise, The Harder They Fall). She displays herself like a femme fatale and plays the part of a "dame with a case" to Darren, and in the movie, which fashions itself a film noir. She even dresses the part. Its not very noir, but I am sure Darren thinks it is. In fact, he keeps on hoping there will be Chinatown parallels for his "case". No one is more surprised than us that there are, kind of. Anywayz, her boss, Councilman Stephen Toronkowski (#snort; Stephen Tobolowsky, Groundhog Day), has a secret, he's corrupt, she claims. This is Darren's chance -- unveil the conspiracy and save... well, save whatever "iconic landmark" he's trying to save this week.

Now Darren fashions himself (phrase re-used intentionally? yes? ok, you go with that) a detective. He thinks that by donning a brimmed hat, an ill-fitting double-breasted jacket, along with his usual sandals, he looks the part. He doesn't. He even does stake-outs (hiding in the bushes) and tails cars (he runs after them, hiding in the bushes) and interrogates people with his mixed personality of confrontational and exudingly polite. And he does uncover a conspiracy, just not the film noir one he thought it was. And yet.... it kind of was? We are left intentionally confused and surprised as Darren is.

Its a fine movie, if a little under proofed. The number of A and B listers partaking shows that Pine has a good relationship in the industry and everyone is really putting in their all. Unlike a lot of movies I watch, where its clear few people are truly engaged with the lackadaisical script and cardboard characters, this one has a cast fully invested. I think it just needed longer in the oven. 

OK, enough GBBO binging for you; terrible mixed metaphors.