Pools 2025 Movie Review
At first blush, Pools from writer and director Sam Hayes looks like just another young adult summer hijinx movie. But the deeper you dive into this film, beyond the booze-soaked shenanigans, you will find a thoughtful exploration of identity in a way that will stop you in your tracks and make you rethink some of your ideas about what living a productive life looks like.
Kennedy (Odessa A’zion) is stuck in summer school, trying to get back on track with her college studies. Despite years as a fantastic student, following the death of her father, her grades began to slip, and she is on the verge of being expelled from school. With the air conditioning broken and a heat wave ravaging the area, she gathers a ragtag group of students to go pool-hopping in the local wealthy neighborhood.
The quick and dirty synopsis sounds like any zany teen movie, but Pools manages to provide us with a deeper look at what it means to be young and trying to find your place in the world, particularly following a significant trauma. As the characters work their way through the neighborhood, breaking into various homes, we learn more about who they are as people, making this movie feel like a true modern-day version of John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club.
While A’zion is very clearly the star of this movie, the supporting cast is all quite stellar. Mason Gooding, who is fantastic in basically everything he does, plays the “jock” character, the boy who works out on the lawn, drawing everyone’s eyes to him. Ariel Winter and Francesca Noel play Delaney and Shane, respectively, the former being Kennedy’s incredibly popular roommate, and the latter being the tagalong friend. Tyler Alvarez rounds out the group as Blake, the nerdy neighbor in the dorm.
Another character who feels like he exists exclusively for comedic value is the air conditioning repairman, Michael, played by Michael Vlamis. We first meet him as Kennedy is chasing him to fix her AC. He later shows up at one of the mansions that Kennedy and her friends break into. He plays along with the wife on the property, dancing with her and joining her in the pool to the consternation of her husband. But even he has a more profound role in the story than it first seems, as he helps Kennedy navigate some of her deep angst about the future.
Visually, Pools also feels almost like a cliché of an indie teen movie with lots of quick pans and somewhat frenetic editing that can feel like it’s trying too hard. But as we begin to understand the characters and their experiences of youth and life, the stylistic choices start to make sense. Like with so many aspects of this film, patience pays off in the end.
One of the things that makes Pools work in a way that other similar movies don’t is that this examination of grief doesn’t get resolved within the run time. Kennedy gains clarity about the path that she’s on and what she might want to do in the future, but she doesn’t have An Answer. That may seem like a minor difference, but honestly, that detail is what makes this movie feel grounded. Grief doesn’t have an answer. Youth doesn’t have an answer. Purpose doesn’t have an answer.
