The first thing we hear is the distant barking of dogs, and the wolves have certainly been out for Chris Pine’s directorial debut since it premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. Before the event began, the idea of Best Chris giving his variant on the Dude archetype in a tongue-in-cheek riff on Chinatown was one of the hottest tickets at the festival. After the screening, the reception was so negative Pine admitted he “was like, maybe I did make a pile of shit?” before concluding that he was still proud of the film no matter what. It’s an endearing response, and it does allow the viewer to see something more heartfelt in the film than its initial reviewers did. Underneath its in-jokes and self-conscious referencing, there’s clearly a lot of Pine in the film’s pensive hero. Put simply, that’s exactly the response Darren Barrenman would have to a critical kicking.
Barrenman is an L.A. pool attendant who appears, at first glance, to be the least motivated person imaginable. Yes, he has dreams of making a documentary with his friend Jack (Danny DeVito, giving it maximum Danny DeVito), but this is L.A. – everybody’s trying to make a movie. It turns out that Darren is a man with burning passions, though in the usual manner of slacker noir those passions aren’t sexual, like they were in the genre’s heyday. Classic noirs like Double Indemnity hung their entire plot off frustrated desire, but we’re introduced to Darren and his girlfriend Susan lying together post-coitally and accidentally talking over each other (“no, you go first”). It’s very charming, and – as she did in Good Time – Jennifer Jason Leigh responds to playing the love interest of a younger actor by embracing something youthful in her own screen persona.
No, the passion in Darren Barrenman – you’re right, it is a slightly-too-cute name – has to do with civic planning and local government corruption. Pine’s performance is, as anticipated, very indebted to Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski, but perhaps not the parts people expected. The first pictures of Pine in-character suggested he was going to update the Dude’s lackadaisical charm for the 21st century, but Barrenman feels most like Jeff Lebowski when he’s yelling in frustration or ranting at another setback. Perhaps this is a sign of the times: even our slackers are unable to relax. It’s equally likely, though, that Pine isn’t experienced enough as a director to balance the conflicts inherent in a movie with a passive lead and a thriller plot.
Perhaps the 2000s wave of Sundance-approved indie comedies has left film-makers a little wary of too much quirk, but when Darren’s investigation leads him to a drag tribute to The Golden Girls I felt like the film had achieved the kind of eccentricity it should have been chasing all along.
I do think the initial extreme reaction to Poolman – multiple reviews used the word “disastrous” in their headlines – is something general audiences will find baffling. That’s not to say the film is going to get a full-scale reassessment, either. It’s a modest, unassuming film in an environment where you have to bellow in order to get attention; its main strategy for getting attention in the modern torrent of content is its starry cast, which in practice got it dismissed as a well-connected actor’s vanity project. There are also things wrong with it that can’t be blamed on the times. I did wonder if the reason why these modern slacker noirs often feel a little underpowered is because the conspiracy culture that initially fuelled them is so toxic now. The 1970s-set Inherent Vice had enough distance from modernity to let its heroes go on stoned, paranoid rambles and the film felt all the more atmospheric for it; the contemporary-set Under the Silver Lake preferred worn-out riffs on manufactured pop and subliminal advertising to anything relevant, and Poolman just ignores the possibility that its lead might be a conspiracy theorist altogether. There is a running strand of lizard imagery that might have began life as a spoof of David Icke’s cosmology; in the finished film, it’s an indulgent gag that doesn’t connect with much around it.
Still, if it doesn’t match up to its oft-quoted inspirations Poolman is successful at being – to quote Darren – “vibey”. It’s a pleasure to hang out with Darren, Jack, Susan and their friends, not least when they’re played by such a great cast. As well as the ones I’ve already mentioned, there’s Annette Bening, DeWanda Wise, Stephen Toblowsky, Ray Wise and Clancy Brown, the latter in the exact role that would have been played by the late Philip Baker Hall if this was one of the Robert Altman or Paul Thomas Anderson films Pine nods to. There are moments that are very funny indeed, like a heartbroken Darren trying to reschedule his calendar through floods of tears, and moments that deliver exactly the right kind of offbeat local colour a film like this thrives on. Perhaps the 2000s wave of Sundance-approved indie comedies has left film-makers a little wary of too much quirk, but when Darren’s investigation leads him to a drag tribute to The Golden Girls I felt like the film had achieved the kind of eccentricity it should have been chasing all along.
Whether that eccentricity would have made it any more palatable to a TIFF audience is a moot point. There’s always a risk in premiering a light, absurd comedy at a Serious Film Festival; even tried-and-tested auteurs like Jim Jarmusch have fallen foul of this. Maybe Pine didn’t know that, maybe he was given bad advice. Whatever, it doesn’t seem to have taken the spring out of his step, and it shouldn’t stop those with a taste for this kind of languid neo-noir from catching an all-too-rare modern example of the form.
Poolman is out on Prime Video from Friday
