The Lifeguard (2013)

The lovely Kristen Bell almost always delivers in whatever role she takes. This time as former valedictorian and seemingly successful journalist, Leigh who is eleven years out from high school searching for meaning and happiness.She returns to her hometown in search of that and takes her old job as a lifeguard while she tries to figure things out. While her parents don't approve, she finds solace in the few friends from H.S. that are still in town, but still comes back to square one when it comes to unhappiness.Then she falls for a teenager thirteen years her junior and has an illicit affair with him. All seems well for her until her affair is discovered and seemingly unhappiness comes back to her. I'll end my little synopsis there!Successful people go through life and sometimes hit a roadblock when the intangibles are not fulfilled. While there were really "steamy" scenes from the illicit affair part of this film, it did not detract from why the story was being told and that is Leigh's unhappiness.This movie tells a story what happens when your life becomes unfulfilled; you think going back home to your roots might help, but it really traps you in the past; and giving into (illicit sexual) emotion as a means to see if that can help.This story of un-fulfillment is one that is hardly told on the big screen or on T.V. The things one does when they come to that point in life was portrayed beautifully by Kristen Bell.

This movie is just fine. It's an interesting story about more different characters with similar life issues. I love the scenery, the nature and whole summer small town vibe from the movie. I think that everyone gets at least once in their life to a point, where we don't know how to go on and what we really want from life. We remember easier times, when we were teenagers or kids and just want to go back to those times for a while, but we really can't. This movie also shows a lot of other different problems. I don't get people saying that this movie glorifies pedophilia? I guess those people don't even know the definition of pedophilia. And just because a movie shows a relationship between an older and a younger partner, doesn't mean it's abuse. Dear Americans- if you're able to get a driving license at the age of 16 and legally be responsible, not just for your own life, but for the lives of other people in traffic, how can you not be responsible for your own love life? Dear everyone else, who suddenly became super sensitive about this subject: Why are you not bashing movies like Scarface or The Godfather or just about any action/ mafia/ war movie for glorifying killing/ drugs/ hate/ rape/ murder or any other violent crimes against humanity? Oh, how wonderful the world would look like if people would be so sensitive to such topics in the media and movies, as they are about an inappropriate relationship in this movie.

We found this one on Netflix streaming movies. We found it to be better than the IMDb rating would suggest. It is a mature theme, a 29-yr-old high achieving lady working in Manhattan, about to turn 30, and both work and relationships conspire to throw her into a dark place. Kristen Bell, who was actually about 32 during filming, is the main character, Leigh. We later find out she was class valedictorian some 12 years earlier, and none of her friends were surprised that she became an award-winning writer. But inside she was lost, and it seemed she just wanted to be a little girl again. The movie isn't clear about where it is set, but we know it was filmed around the Pittsburgh area, and at least one of the teenagers was wearing a Pittsburgh tee-shirt. So I'll go with that. But it is an attractive suburban type of community, one where you can walk a short distance and be in the woods.Leigh informs her parents that she will stay with them for a while. Aimless she decides to take a job she had as a teenager, lifeguard at the local pool. She meets some teen boys, about 16 and 17, and she instantly identifies with them. This confuses her good friend from high school, Mamie Gummer as Mel, who is now assistant principal at the school they graduated from. Plus Mel has her own set of issues, she and her husband seem to be trying to get pregnant, but she isn't sure she would be a good mom. She regresses also to some "teenage" behavior.The other key character is David Lambert as Little Jason, son of the pool maintenance man. (The character is 16 or 17, but Lambert was 19, almost 20 during filming.) He and Leigh seem to be kindred spirits, she helps him see the possibilities in life, while she sees him as the embodiment of the unfulfilled love life she thought she wanted.I thought this might be a light romantic comedy but it is far from that. It is about coming of age, but with a twist that the two 30-ish women had never really come of age. There are some pretty raw and explicit scenes depicting sex between a 29-yr-old woman and a 16-yr-old boy, which is shocking to most. I instantly found myself wondering what if it had been a 29-yr-old man with a 16-yr-old girl. It seems movies are more accepting of a teenage boy and an older woman, as in "The Summer of '42" and "Life According to Garp", just to cite a couple of others.It is hard to "rate" this movie, it isn't "enjoyable" in the usual sense but I found it to be very realistic, and it illustrates how navigating through life sometimes is very unclear. While Leigh was a writer, not a teacher, it seems virtually every week we read about a female teacher getting found out having an intimate relationship with one of her male students. The movie reflects real life.

This is the most egregiously atrocious piles of rotting compost that I've ever seen! Why did I see it? Mostly because of that damned picture of Kristen Bell in a swimsuit. I saw it on the 12th page of movie titles available on RedBox...(That should have told me something), but I figured it might be one of those diamond in the rough Indie films you can sometimes find there...Boy, was I wrong. If you like movies about burnout losers, pedophiles, and teen suicide this might be your cup of joe, but here's why I hated it:Is Kristin Bell desperate now? Or is she just committing career suicide? Not too sure, but doing a movie where you rape a teenager and do drugs with them doesn't seem to be the way to score a high profile gig. I'm not a prude as far as sexual content or drug use, but this movie just...was too much. She took a few steps back (career wise)in my mind. She also looked terrible in the movie.Truthfully, I didn't make it through the whole movie so I'm not sure how it ended, but it was such a nihilistic, depressing, and overall just sad, mess of a movie up till' the point where I turned it off. I was getting the message of "be your own person, do whatever you have to do to discover yourself blah blah blah." A message that has been done before in so many better ways.The acting was atrocious. It seriously was terrible...Kristen Bell was serviceable, but not good. Her parents and friends in the movie are probably some of the worst actors I've ever seen; I'm not sure I can actually call them actors. Judge for yourself (actually don't this movie sucks), but the people in this movie can not act to save their lives.Technically speaking, everything was decent. The cinematography was cinematic, but nothing mind blowing. Editing was good enough and the pacing was decent. Long story short, this movie sucks. I didn't watch the whole thing so take it with a grain of salt, but the hour and twenty minutes I did watch sucked so badly. Save yourself a buck and an hour and a half of your life you'll never get back. Don't watch this garp.