The Pool (2007)
Average Rating: 7.5/10
Reviews Counted: 47
Fresh: 45 | Rotten: 2
Beautifully crafted with loosely drawn characters and a lilting, natural pace, Chris Smith's The Pool features a universal message to which everyone can relate.
Average Rating: 8/10
Critic Reviews: 20
Fresh: 20 | Rotten: 0
Beautifully crafted with loosely drawn characters and a lilting, natural pace, Chris Smith's The Pool features a universal message to which everyone can relate.
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Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 689
Movie Info
American Movie director Chris Smith makes the shift from documentary specialist to feature-film director with this Hindi-language drama concerning a young hotel employee whose obsession with an opulent swimming pool at a nearby house gradually turns his life upside down. The affluent hills of Panjim, Goa, in India are the absolute lap of luxury, and when a young boy working at a nearby hotel discovers an extravagant swimming pool, his awe is soon offset by the arrival of a mysterious family at
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Cast
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Venkatesh Chavan
Venkatesh -
Jhangir Badshah
Jhangir -
Ayesha Mohan
Ayesha -
Nana Patekar
Nana -
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All Critics (47) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (45) | Rotten (2)
Patekar's ability to convey stoic forbearance with so little apparent effort, is one of the marvellous rewards of this intricately textured and compelling film.
Top CriticA miraculous, American-made Hindi film that is every bit as tranquil as the blue-green reservoir that serves as its abiding metaphor.
Reality and fiction fuse like watercolors in this quietly compelling narrative feature.
It's a movie about a time, a place and a situation that isn't going to change soon. [Director] Smith takes his time to establish the people, the landscape and the striking contrast between the lives of the very rich and the very poor.
It's a bit schematic and sweet-natured, perhaps to a fault, yet the faces linger.
By pushing himself far outside his Midwestern comfort zone and working with non-actors in a language he doesn't speak, Smith has created a fable with universal appeal.
Though plot-wise nothing much happens, Smith elicits strong sense of place and teases out the film's themes ...
It's a subtle, truthful, moving story of class, ambition, friendship and romantic yearning, extremely well acted by a largely non-professional cast.
[A] wholly unobjectionable, likeably performed but faintly soporific drama ...
Shot with a level of realism we rarely seen in Indian cinema, this film combines sharply engaging characters with an involving story that really gets under the skin. A
Told with real warmth and charm, this is a confidently handled tale boosted by natural, engaging performances from Venkatesh and Jahangir Badshah as his young friend.
It tells you a lot about South India, its essentially rural culture and the stifling poverty of its underclass.
Smith's film is natural and unforced, with a winning fluency and calm observational style.
Hopefully Smith will make more movies in this laid-back, poetic style.
Here are filigree detailing, pure-and-simple performances (especially from Venkatesh Chavan as the boy) and a subtly lambent moral tale ...
A fascinating narrative set in modern-day Indian and full of insights into a class-riven country.
It tells a tale so sweetly elemental and classic that it could pretty much have happened along at any point in storytelling history.
Satisfying tale of marginalized youth struggling to survive alone in a cold world and dreaming of success despite all odds against them.
Shimmers silently. A quietly remarkable film, for its seeming simplicity, its careful rhythms, and its interest in a place and its spirit.
The Pool is beautiful to look at, and, for what it conveys about human nature, to experience.
worth seeing, primarily for its beautiful Goa setting
Based on a story by Randy Russell, The Pool is a low-key film that often feels like a documentary...
Audience Reviews for The Pool
Super Reviewer
[font=Century Gothic][/font]
[font=Century Gothic]"The Pool" is a fine but insubstantial movie that has more of a message than any kind of plot. It is mostly concerned with the issue of children in India being forced to grow up too quickly, many with little or no education. But the film's structure betrays this by simply going in circles, repeating the endless cycle of the boys' lives. And the jump cutting gives the movie an unnecessarily artsy feel.[/font]
Super Reviewer
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- Nana: So, suppose I gave you and your sister a hundred rupees each. And I say, go to the market and buy yourself something. She buys a frock for herself and you buy a shirt for yourself. Now, let's say you bought something and your sister asks to see it. You tell her to go first. She shows a shirt that she has bought for you. And, then you smiles and shows her a frock that you have bought for her. Either way you were going to get a shirt and she a frock. But the feeling you get from giving... It's magic.
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Movie: ID: 770758980 Title: The Pool Release Date: 2008-09-05 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 4 Status: 1
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