Poolman: A Future Cult Classic

A conversation about expectations and artistic expression.

I’ve heard a lot of things about the movie Poolman, and most weren’t good. Almost every review that I’ve stumbled across calls the film bad in a myriad of ways. References are frequently made about how audiences walked out of the film halfway through the screening.

It might seem strange, but the more negative opinions I came across, the more I wanted to take the time to form my own conclusion.

You see, Poolman presents an interesting scenario: What happens when a mainstream Hollywood actor is left to their own devices during a pandemic and decides to get creative?

It might be because I was raised by a model who became a stylist and later a creative director, but I’ve always found it interesting when creatives capitalize on transferable skills and do something new.

Watching the Film

It was a rainy Thursday afternoon in June when I sat down with my mom, grabbed some snacks, made a deal with Parkour Cat, and finally watched Poolman.

The movie opened with a simple scene: a man selecting a song, putting on some headphones, and cleaning a pool as though it’s the most important thing in the world. The combination of surrealness and whimsy immediately struck me as funny. It also brought back summertime memories of my speedo-wearing grandfather rescuing frogs from our pool.

I think this is because the film is very much a love letter to memories. There’s a feeling throughout the piece of trying to grasp, understand, and preserve tender, fleeting dreams.

This can be felt not only in the homages, styling, and color, but also in the choices that were not made.

Artistic Nature of the Film

Poolman is unabashedly goofy, occasionally cryptic, but it’s also jubilantly and unreservedly itself. This means that sometimes the story goes left when it could have gone right to appeal to a wider audience. This is definitely a feature of the film that has generated some divisiveness.

I can’t help but wonder if a portion of the negative critique stems from primarily viewing film from a commercial perspective, as opposed to an artistic one. The reason I mention this is because art is highly subjective, and while we all have opinions about what we like, those opinions don’t define whether or not the art itself is good.

Filmmakers are artists; they paint with scenes, silence, and space. They explore reality and its possible interpretations, creating a pantomime that can be fast-forwarded, rewound, and replayed.

No Expectations, Just Joy

Before I give my final verdict on how I experienced Poolman and what I took away from it, I think it might help if I share part of my background, at least as it relates to media consumption.

I was raised on odd, free-range, and eclectic content. For a large part of my childhood, I watched television on a black-and-white TV that was barely eight inches wide. Cartoons were reserved for the weekends at my grandparents’ house. The only movie theaters I regularly went to were independent ones that showed indie documentaries, foreign films, and Golden Age classics. As for videos, well, most of those came from the library or small neighborhood establishments like Queen Video.

To make a long story short, I got used to enjoying stories and movies based on what they were rather than what they weren’t. If I couldn’t understand the plot because it was in another language, I could still enjoy the costumes, physical comedy, and scoring.

I think this is one of the reasons I was able to sincerely enjoy Poolman. I’m not saying that the movie is without faults, but I don’t see those faults inherently as errors. Yes, there are choices I might not have made, but that’s a good thing. Everyone filters the world differently, and the narrative decisions that the team behind Poolman committed to, underscores the variety within the human experience.

Poolman makes me think of films that I loved growing up, like The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, and Amelie.

This isn’t a film that everyone will enjoy, but I think as time passes, more and more people will discover its charm.

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