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The Lifeguard
After feeling a sense of emptiness and sadness in her life, 29-year-old Leigh is on leave from her job in New York City and returns to the place she last felt happy: her childhood home in Connecticut. She gets work as a lifeguard and starts a dangerous relationship with a troubled teenager.
29 November 1992, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
17 May 1974, Chicago, Illinois, USA
30 September 1952, New York City, New York, USA
August 29, 2013
Solid performances can't save the undercooked, shallow, overly simplistic screenplay.
August 29, 2013
The movie's being billed in some quarters as a comedy, which is a hell of a stretch given that the plot expands to take in statutory rape and teen suicide.
August 30, 2013
The movie really depends on Bell, and her story, and neither is interesting or compelling enough to engage us.
August 30, 2013
The film strains to be hip and edgy in its exploration of catharsis through starting over, and its central relationship feels more contrived than authentic.
September 02, 2013
The writer/director stifles any actual feeling with thudding, heavily-underlined subtext-as-text dialogue and an overreliance on indie rock scored musical montages
September 03, 2013
A strikingly realistic approach lifts this comedy-drama above the fray, combining skilful writing and direction with transparent performances that reveal the characters' internal struggles.
August 30, 2013
Although writer-director Liz W. Garcia's wistful, angsty tale treads familiar ground, the filmmaker has crafted a credibly flawed and conflicted heroine who holds interest.
August 30, 2013
With apologies to Thomas Wolfe, you can go home again; The Lifeguard just proves that sometimes it's not the best course of action.
August 30, 2013
The central character simply comes across as whiny and entitled instead of troubled and dark, and the central theme of getting your groove back by acting like a kid again has been done many times by much more talented filmmakers.
August 29, 2013
This directorial debut by Liz W. Garcia, a writer for television, bears some echoes of its creator's origins, going from deft to trite in its drama and setting up character arcs that feel sappily resolved within its feature length.
September 02, 2013
"The Lifeguard" is hemmed in by vagueness and cliche, and nearly ruined by its soundtrack, an insistent barrage of thematically obvious alt-radio music cues.
September 03, 2013
Drama is short on story, long on illicit romance.