The Lifeguard

Cast of Characters:
Leigh - Kristen Bell
Mel - Mamie Gummer
Todd - Martin Starr
Matt - Alex Shaffer
John - Joshua Harto
Little Jason - David Lambert
Justine - Amy Madigan

Director - Liz W. Garcia
Screenplay - Liz W. Garcia
Rated R for strong sexuality, brief graphic nudity, drug use, language and a disturbing image - some involving teens

      Kristen Bell stars in the feature-length film debut of Liz W. Garcia, The Lifeguard. Looks like Veronica Mars is getting her mid-life crisis on.

      Leigh (Kristen Bell), who's almost thirty yet goes to great lengths to let us know she's still twenty-nine, lives in New York where all seems to be going well. That is, until her job and relationship all come crashing down. Following these trials, she moves back to her hometown to live with her parents. This is met with slight displeasure from her mother Justine (Amy Madigan) who feels this move back home will only hold her her daughter back.

      Once settled in, Leigh reunites with her old friends Todd (Martin Starr), her artsy friend, and Mel (Mamie Gummer), another old friend now an assistant principal who's also have some relationship issues with her husband John (Joshua Harto). Leigh also gets a job at the local swimming pool as a lifeguard and that's where she meets the pool maintenance man's son Little Jason (David Lambert). Jason, along with his downer friend Matt (Alex Shaffer), has had enough of the town and is trying to save up what money he can to move to Vermont (Really? Out of all 50 states, Vermont?). Along with shirking off any responsibilities whatsoever, she enters into a summer fling with Little Jason. I forgot to point out, Jason's sixteen. It's all good, Leigh. Just tell the officers you're not thirty, you're still twenty-nine.

      While it hasn't opened yet, The Lifeguard did compete at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. I'm always up for a quirky/mid-life crisis type indie movie, so I figured I'd give this a shot. What I got instead was a moody, slow paced, tedious bore of a film that by the end left me wondering what exactly was the point of this? Mid-life crisis films such as Groundhog Day, About a Boy, Stranger Than Fiction, and of course, American Beauty handled the subject matter terrifically 'cause at some point the film had a turning point and by the end of the film there was a meaning to it all. Here I couldn't exactly tell what the film was trying to say and that's if it was trying to say anything at all. Where most films, even some of the bad ones, have a trajectory outline similar to a roller coaster (up, down, side to side, and a few loops thrown in as well), this film had a tone and pace so monotone it was like sitting through a ride that only traveled straight at a pace of about neutral. Seriously, sitting through this makes Terrence Malick (who's actually a terrific filmmaker) look like Michael Bay on crack. Now let's address the elephant in the room and that of course concerns Little Miss Lolita here. I'm all for objectivity in film and letting the viewer decide. Who likes a director that constantly has to hold the moviegoers hand? We're talking about a thirty year old having sex with a sixteen year old though, and that's with no consequences ever brought up at any point in the movie. Something. Anything. Hell, even a, "Okay, maybe, just maybe this is the tiniest bit fucked up." If the roles were reversed, Chris Hansen would've had a guest spot here. I still can't quite decide though whether the film's biggest sin is either that, giving Martin Starr (who has been dependably funny before in films like Knocked Up and Adventureland) absolutely nothing to do, or disguising itself as an "indie film" when it's clearly not. Just 'cause you have the hipster, coffee shop acoustic music bopping in the background while the main character gets that token symbolic moment where she mopes into the pool fully clothed and completely immerses herself in the water doesn't make you "indie".

      Kristen Bell, for the most part, has made her fair share of poor film choices. However, she has shown she's capable of good things in Showtime's House of Lies with Don Cheadle. I don't know what to make of this. It's hard to really feel sorry for her character when she's committing acts that legally speaking would deem her a sexual predator. I don't fault writer/director Liz W. Garcia for wanting to go that direction. I fault her for not really having anything to say in regards to it other than a short, cheapened "whatever" speech by Jason's father near the end. Plus, it's hard for Leigh to get any help for her mid-life crisis when it seems like every single other character in the film is going through their own mid-life crisis as well. I give The Lifeguard a D- (½★).