Apparently, if you look hard enough, there are tons of movies people don't even cheer for on Netflix. I was looking for something off the beaten path, I get tired of the same old rom-coms but I don't like a bunch of bloody gore either. I only chose this one because I recognized Nick Krull on the cover and I thought he was very funny on The League.
The movie starts with the Nick character, Jake, celebrating the release of what appear to be those google glasses that were going to come out like two years ago. He is some sort of entrepreneur and he has invested all his and a lot of his friends money into this product. The product is a dud and a no show. He losses all his money and becomes a nobody overnight. To avoid the threatening calls and people that want to kill him, he leaves the big city and goes back to whatever small town he grew up in. We quickly learn his mother has passed away and his father is happily remarried and leaving in south Florida. He and the new wife appear to be obsessed with their one grandkid which belongs to his sister. He has installed a new pool and suggests they put the kid in swimming lessons. While there, they learn of adult beginner classes for swimming, which they find insulting, but that is where the title to the movie is.
The sister still lives in their childhood home, so he begs her to stay for a "while." A while turns into 3 plus months. He is acting as the kid's "manny" and has started becoming rooted in their lifestyle, which isn't much with the husband spending all his time remodeling their home and another one, which is what he does for a living. By chance, he discovers the husband is fooling around and then confronts him. This kind of opens the storyline up. He has to accept that he was a shitty brother to his sister when their mom got sick, he stayed away. The sister half expects him to do the same thing again and is worried he will hurt their son, who is spending a lot of time with Jake,
The movie ran a little long, it wasn't boring, but almost. He has a love interest in a Paula Garces and they seem to hit it off, but his personality soon gets in the way of that. At some point, he lucks out and one of the parent's of the kid's play group offers him a bankers job. He is soon doing great again and impressing the boss, but since he is now older and wiser, we get to see whether he can now choose better when his family calls him during the day for mundane shit that could really wait until later in the day. I actually hate when people who work are treated like the bad guy, fuck that, where do people think money comes from? But anyway, it is interesting to see that even though he could be on a quick rise in the new company, he leaves in the middle of the day when the sister calls because the kid is getting ready to jump into a swimming pool (this shit could totally wait), but also when she goes into labor, he shows up to help watch their older kid.
I enjoyed the movie, it made me think. You can't fault your surviving parent for moving on after the other passes. Life is long and is best enjoyed with a companion. I was kind of watching Up before going to work and the old man is just miserable living by himself after spending most of his life with the perfect woman, but yet, it is not yet his time to die. He must adapt and I think we all have to, in order to find meaning and a reason to keep on chugging along.
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