TIFF Next Wave: “Pools” is Refreshing & Alive
People seem to think you only come of age once in your life. That strange limbo between the teenage years and adulthood isn’t the only time a person’s life is wholly upended, but the coming-of-age movie is usually reserved for that period. Of course, everyone who’s made it out of their teenage years knows this is just the first of many moments of upheaval that will come around in a lifetime. Sam Hayes’ Pools is a special coming-of-age flick that manages to transcend time, space, and age to tell one of the sweetest stories ever told: how to grow up.
Kennedy (Odessa A'zion) is what could colloquially be known as a screw-up. She’s a sophomore in college and stuck in the special kind of hell that is summer school. After a great freshman year with stellar grades, Kennedy has fallen behind. She was once star student, but is now a day away from permanently flunking out of school. In an effort to not disappoint the memory of her recently deceased father, Kennedy plans to enjoy one last night of debauchery before she becomes a star pupil once again. While she doesn’t have any actual friends, she ropes in her freshman-year roommate (Ariel Winter) and her new roommate (Francesca Noel), the nerd down the hall (Tyler Alvarez), and the jock who’s always working out on the quad (Mason Gooding). Kennedy’s plan entails alcohol and a rich person’s pool to finally get some relief from the sweltering Chicago summer.
Courtesy of Pools
It’s always a thrill to see a feature directorial debut with such a self-assured style. Hayes has created something special with Pools. You can feel the pull (no pun intended) of his voice from the opening of the film. The audience is introduced to Kennedy in the underwater-blue world of a pool she clearly finds so much solace in. Ben Hardwicke’s underwater cinematography is something to behold. Beneath the surface, a wide range of blues creates a sense of peace, but also melancholy loneliness. The pool, at first, merely provides relief from the summer heat because the college’s air-conditioning units need repair. As the film continues though, the pool reaches new depths. It’s still a source of escape, but what Kennedy is trying to escape from becomes clearer.
Hardwicke also beautifully captures the setting sun and the cotton candy-bubblegum sunsets that make one feel small. There are gorgeous, languid sequences of Kennedy as she gazes up at the clouds and the wondrous world around her. She’s both small and magnificent. She just doesn’t realize it yet. No one does when they’re nineteen, which is both the beauty and the strife that go with being at this stage in your life. The stunning cinematography work complements A'zion’s transformative performance. Pools will likely be the audience’s first introduction to A'zion, but viewers will see her again in the upcoming Untitled Rachel Sennott HBO series. There are few scenes where A'zion is absent, and she’s the film’s guiding light. A'zion imbues so much humor and heartache into Kennedy, and she’s a true standout in a film of standout performances.
Courtesy of Pools
Pools would be a perfect double feature with Cooper Raiff’s Shithouse. They’re at odds with each other tonally and visually, but together they pack a one-two punch of the sort of heartsickness that comes from loving something so much and not knowing how to change with the world around you. Pools is weirdo, emo cinema, unafraid to employ rambunctious, visual language in the same breath it’s asking the viewer to be vulnerable. It’s a beautiful ode to the foolish sadness that comes from feeling like you should have a grasp on your life when the reality is that nothing is murkier than figuring out what you want your future to look like. As one can see in Pools, this period in life can inspire us to be reckless and introspective, often with the same decision.
What begins as a college-hangout-shenanigans flick turns into something far more genuine. Pools never loses its oddball sensibilities, but it does allow its characters to become more than what they first appear. A slacker is not merely a slacker, nor is a jock merely a jock. It’s The Breakfast Club, but on the borrowed time of a party that shouldn’t exist with people who barely know each other. It’s often these nights that provide more growth than anything you can learn in a textbook. Pools is refreshing and alive, and evokes the feeling of diving into the deep end of a swimming pool in the dog days of summer.
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