Pool Days (1993) User Reviews

Struggling to come out

[mermatt · 25 September 1999]

This is an interesting short film about a young man who has a summer job at a pool in a health club. He notices that he is very attracted to some of the young men in the club. One of them eventually helps him to realize that he must face the reality of who he is.

The well-acted little story leaves the main character on the verge of deciding what to do, but the help of his new friend is encouraging. This is a thoughtful film about the struggle of coming out.

Pool gays

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 2 December 2018]

"Pool Days" is an award-winning American short film from 1993 in the English language, so this one is already 25 years old now and it was written and directed by Brian Sloan, probably among his more known career efforts. This one shows that gay-themed short films and gay-themed short film collections already existed back in the early 1990s too and honestly judging from this one here, it was not worse than it is today. Admittedly, that is because today the quality is so so weak most of the time when it comes to gay-themed short films and not because this one here is great or so. Not even good. Acting is tolerable, but the characters all seem like caricatures really and the writing feels more for the sake of it than really substantial and insightful. Admittedly, there is a certain retro valley to this film and also it feels pretty rock'n roll occasionally, not just at the very end with the song we hear during the closing credits. Maybe they could have taken a few steps back in depicting the female protagonist as unlikable as possible, but yeah. Also admittedly, the love interest did not feel gay at all to me in terms of vibes. But yeah, as for the main character, it isn't a gay-themed movie even, more like a bi-themed if you want to call it that. Still without offering a great deal of quality, the movie flew by relatively quickly in my opinion. But seeing it once is definitely enough, maybe already one time too many and it's for good reason that nobody I think attached to this film, in front of the camera or behind it, had a stellar career in the last quarter of the century. Nonetheless, the subject was certainly far more controversial than it is today when homosexuality/bisexuality is perceived as something pretty normal, even if some people try to convince us otherwise while creating homophobia this way under the cover of being actually against it. Now, I am drifting a bit away. Back to this film, it's a close call, but all in all it just doesn't really stand out whatsoever, so I give it a thumbs-down and a negative recommendation despite how 90s it feels.

realism

[Kirpianuscus · 30 October 2018]

The realism of a teenager confusion about his sexuality, presented in delicate - precise manner is the basic virtue of this decent, nice and reasonable short film about summer job, meetings and decisions. The humor and the not bad acting are useful for a story who, not special being, is an inspired portrait of the desire and answer to it.