The Girl In The Pool — The Girl In The Pool(VOD)
The Girl In The Pool is a recent take on the will-they-get-caught-or-not Thriller. It finds Tom (Freddie Prinze Jr) a middle-aged/middle-management father of two trying to retain a cool and calm demeanour, as the body of his dead lover is hidden nearby. Here from Signature Entertainment is a digital release of the film.
The Girl In The Pool is a 2024 American production. It was directed by LA-born Dakota Gorman- who has one other feature-length credit to her name 2020 comedy-drama Natural Disasters. Though she has eleven acting credits- taking the likes of Get Big (2017), and Natural Disasters.
Unlike a lot of modern films, The Girl In The Pool has a nice short and sharp runtime of eighty-nine minutes. With its blend of paranoia, thrills, suspense and light touches of comedy drama being well realized.
The film opens with slow moody panning shots inside of Tom’s family home- as we slowly drift into the shower room where the grey-stubbled father of two is vigorously washing his body. We then get a quick cut flashback to the house's pool, and a blood-covered young woman in skimpy underwear lying near it.
Fairly soon his panicked flashback is broken by his blond-turning-to-grey haired wife Kristen (Monica Potter) who is asking if he’s ready to go out to a booked restaurant meal. She leads him downstairs, and after a few more moments of twitchy nerves from Tom, she opens the patio doors- to find a whole load of friends, work colleagues, and family have come to the house for a surprise birthday party for Tom.
We find out he has hidden the seemingly dead body of his younger lover Hannah(Gabrielle Haugh) in a storage box at the side of the house, which is used for pool inflatables/ floats. So he has to make sure no one discovers it.
As the film unfolds Tom gets more and more twitchy and worried- which isn’t helped by drinking alcohol, and taking other drugs. At the party we of course have his wife Kristen, their late teen son and daughter- both who have secrets/announcements to be made. Willam( Kevin Pollak) his constantly belittling father-in-law, work buddies trying to get him stoned, and a nosy/ beer stealing next door teen.
Prinze Jr is excellent as our lead- balancing well twitchy paranoia, moments of bare face-panic, and trying to be a caring father. The rest of the cast do well with their roles too- though I’d say Pollak didn't seem believable as the father of Potter- as they are both of a similar age.
For the most part, The Girl In The Pool is a decent and thrilling ride- with some rewarding twists along its length. The resolve feels somewhat flat/ over too quickly, but otherwise the pace and unfolding of the film is well realized. But take my advice, and don’t watch the trailer- as it gives away some of the plot points/ twists in the film