Lifeguard

Rick is thirty two and works as a lifeguard in California. He likes the job: the sea, the sun, the tower and watching people all day. But the people he grew up with have built other lives. He goes to the fifteenth reunion of his high school class and meets an old girlfriend there; she is divorced with a child. At the same time he is offered a well paid job at a car dealership. Rick has to decide whether what he does is a profession or a postponed life. Daniel Petrie directs. Sam Elliott plays Rick. The film belongs to the character driven strand of seventies American cinema; the plot is slight and the narrative carries a mood. It is Sam Elliott's first major lead and the character is nowhere made heroic. The subject is the postponement of adulthood. The life Rick chose is not easy; the film neither praises nor blames it, it only shows the cost. His involvement with a young girl is the most uncomfortable strand and is additionally troubling by present measure. The beach sections were shot on location and the California atmosphere of the period is what stays in the memory. Who it is for: viewers who like seventies American cinema and character drama. Who it is not for: little happens, the pace is slow, and some strands are problematic seen from now.