GIRL IN THE POOL, THE
(director: Dakota Gorman; screenwriter: Jackson Reid Williams; cinematographer: Alonso Homs; editor:Rob Bonz; music: Adam Bosarge; cast: Freddie Prinze Jr. (Thomas), Monica Potter (Kristen), Gabrielle Haugh (Hannah), Brielle Barbusca (Rose), Tyler Lawrence Gray (Alex), Kevin Pollak (William), Jaylen Moore (Randall), Michael Sirow (Mike); Runtime: 89; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Larry Greenberg, German Michael Torres, RJ Collins, Eric Brenner;
A Quiver Distribution; 2024)
“Schlock.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Dakota Gorman directs this trashy sitcom-like comedic thriller. It’s swimmingly written as schlock by Jackson Reid Williams. Its simple premise adds enough substance to save it from drowning, as it has its once teen heart-throb film star Freddie Prinze Jr. play a balding piggish middle-aged man employed as a business manager.
Thomas (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is comfortably living in suburban Los Angeles, where he finds the murdered body of his young mistress Hannah (Gabrielle Haugh) bleeding and face-down in his pool. Panic-stricken that his wife Kristen (Monica Potter) will soon come home from work so they can go out to dinner, he conveniently stuffs her murdered body and cell phone into a supply chest positioned near the pool. When he walks into the garden by the pool, his wife is there with their clean-cut adult kids Alex (Tyler Lawrence Gray) and Rose (Brielle Barbusca), friends and family, as she’s throwing him a surprise birthday party by the pool.
For the remainder of the film our philandering protagonist tries keeping the body hidden from the others and keeping his adultery secret, while some of the Gen Z guests do drugs and sex by the chest.
Who murdered the girl and why remains a mystery.
The gist of the story takes place during the party, as his unaware family celebrates his birthday.
Many tawdry twists occur. For one his irascible father-in-law William (Kevin Pollak), who despises him, keeps falsely pointing out his marriage is falling apart.
There are ill-conceived flashbacks of Thomas with Hannah in the afternoon, superfluous make-out scenes, and a boring home tour, all of which are jarring and ruin the film’s rhythm. What format works best is a spaced-out and guilt-ridden Thomas’s descent into lunacy. But the flick flounders in its uneven execution and half-assed characterizations, and without getting enough laughs to make it worthwhile to sit through such a mess the film never reaches its aim to be a black comedy. However, it can be enjoyed by the viewer so taken with Prinze Jr.’s mesmerizing paranoid performance that they can live with all its silliness.
REVIEWED ON 1/22/2025 GRADE: C+
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