Hugo Pool

Judging from the range of comments on Hugo Pool they seem to run the gamut. As a film, it's not the kind of thing I'd usually watch, but it did contain some rather strange characters.

Alyssa Milano in between her stints as Tony Danza's daughter in Who's The Boss and one of the Halliwell sisters in Charmed was cast in the lead by director Robert Downey, Sr. She seems to have taken complete charge of the pool cleaning company that is a family business because dad (Malcolm McDowell) is reverting to being a teenager and mom (Cathy Moriarty) can't control her gambling addiction. In fact she either has to come up with the money or sleep with the bookie.

Anyway somebody has to step up to the plate and Alyssa seems the only one likely to do so. She's got a lot of customers out there in Nevada who want to use their swimming pools because of the heat and who need them cleaned.

Anyway on her route she meets Patrick Dempsey who even with Lou Gehrig's disease is not about to miss out on all the good things in life. In fact one of only two parts of his anatomy are untouched by amytrophic lateral sclerosis, his brain and the love muscle. In fact the second has some remarkable staying power as he informs us.

Hugo Pool is the story of all these characters and the day they spend together. It's an interesting tale and maybe had it been done in a more straightforward and romantic way, I might have liked the film better.

Still it's not the fault of the cast who give some very good performances. Not mentioned by me before are Robert Downey, Jr. as an egotistical movie director and Sean Penn as a hitchhiker Malcolm McDowell picks up. Dig those sky blue shoes that Penn wears.

Hugo Pool might be your cup of tea, it wasn't quite mine though.

There are a number of memorable acting turns, some more than obvious self-reflective references to addictions (of all types), and a too-pat hand of predictability to move this film beyond a 6 for me. The performances almost rise above the plot restrictions (or lack of restrictions)....an interesting contrast is Robert Altman's "Cookie's Fortune" which I saw two days later which used the characters' idiosyncrasies to move a plot.

I didn't know much about "Hugo Pool" when I rented it last night. It seemed to be about an interesting collection of quirky characters. What I found out is that it's a collection of quirky characters, all right, but interesting, they're not.

Here's the plot, such as it is. Alyssa Milano plays a pool cleaner. We follow her around for a day as she cleans a few pools and encounters quirky characters, some of whom are family members, others customers.

Ms. Milano is awful in the lead role. This is the caliber of acting you'd expect from the girl playing Laurie in the high school production of "Oklahoma". It's pretty much a one-note performance, as if she were told, "act impatient," so she responded by setting her jaw and stomping through the movie. Drive truck, pour chemicals, act impatient, encounter next customer, scold Mom, act impatient. No higher gear, no lower gear, just the one setting.

Sean Penn and Robert Downey Jr. are terrific actors. Something went wrong here, though. Mr. Downey does some sort of burned-out-Inspector-Clouseau routine, while Mr. Penn does some sort of grown-up-Jeff-Spicoli thing.

Whatever. At no time did I see any of these quirky characters as anything other than actors trying to act quirky.

And I kept thinking about the 44 pools Ms. Milano was supposed to clean in one day. Say 10 minutes per pool, and 10 minutes' drive between pools, and that's nearly a 15-hour day. And she kept saying she was running late. Would you want to have, say, pool #40, and have some bickering pool cleaners in your backyard at 10:00-11:00 at night?

And I got to thinking about the money. Mr. Downey's character was behind on payments, the numbers averaging out to $200 per month. Let's say there are only 44 customers, pools being cleaned once a day. So the pool cleaning company is grossing $105,600 per year. If there are 88 customers, pools being cleaned every other day, the company is grossing $211,200 per year. If pools are cleaned once a week, and the pool company works 5 days per week, the company is grossing over half a million a year.

I don't have a pool and have no idea how often pools are cleaned. But the point is, it was more interesting to sit and do the revenue calculations in my head than to watch the parade of actors acting quirky. Or badly acting.

I have to admit, as I watched the movie, my expectations haven't been met. Most of all, I expected a plot. Since most movies have one, at least to some degree, the `average' watcher tends to expect one here, too. But, it didn't take me long, until I realized that this movie wasn't the `average' movie, and I don't mean that in a bad way.

In the first scene where Hugo's father was introduced, I began to realize what the character of this movie is like. This perception strengthened as more and more people showed up and exhibited their unorthodox, quirky features. Alone the weird things like `a stranger is sleeping in somebody else's truck, then the owner shows up, asks no questions and they both hit the road without even wasting a thought about what this is all about' made me laugh. The dialogs between the characters and the spontaneous and almost unreasonable turns of the plot make the movie special. It is hard to explain to someone who hasn't watched it.

Read the other comments and you'll find the opinions range from real bad to gorgeous. My advice is, be open-minded. This is not the average movie - in many aspects. Don't have too high expectations and you won't be disappointed, this movie is no blockbuster but it sure can be very entertaining if you give it a chance.

All in all, I liked the movie and if you ask me if I'll watch it again, I'd say: no - no doubt. (6/10)

So it may not be a blockbuster. But quirky does describe it well. Sean Penn and Roddy McDowall have an interesting relationship in this movie, but it's a good thing that Downey Jr. is related to the writer, as his portrayal of Franz is way over the top. But the surprise is that Danilo Perez provided the soundtrack, and while the original music may not live up to the content of his jazz albums, the inclusion of the Thelonious Monk tunes in the soundtrack is an incredible treat!