Poolman

Darren Barrenman looks after a swimming pool for a living and writes to Erin Brockovich every single day. He's the hero of 'Poolman', the comedy mystery Chris Pine wrote with his friend Ian Gotler and chose for his debut as a director, with himself in the lead. The idea came out of a conversation with Patty Jenkins, who had directed him in 'Wonder Woman' and 'Wonder Woman 1984' and came on board as a producer.

Home is a trailer beside the pool at the Tahitian Tiki, a faded Los Angeles apartment block, where he tends the water with an almost Zen devotion. He's a regular at city council meetings, where his speeches about fixing the city drive councilman Stephen Toronkowski (Stephen Tobolowsky) up the wall. His real family is Jack and Diane (Danny DeVito and Annette Bening), who are shooting a documentary about his crusades, and Diane also happens to be his therapist. His girlfriend, Susan (Jennifer Jason Leigh), manages the building.

Then June Del Rey (DeWanda Wise), Toronkowski's assistant, bails him out after a scuffle at City Hall lands him in a cell, and asks him to look into a shady property deal her boss may be mixed up in. Darren isn't keen at first, but 'Chinatown' is his favourite film. Before long he sees himself as a proper detective and drags his friends into an amateur investigation with plenty of money and, above all, a lot of water at stake.

Clancy Brown, John Ortiz, Ray Wise and Juliet Mills round out the cast, and Pine's father, Robert Pine, has a small part. DeWanda Wise stepped in for Ariana DeBose, who left over scheduling conflicts. It was shot in Los Angeles from June 2022 on 35mm film, with Matthew Jensen as cinematographer and a score by Andrew Bird, and it makes no secret of how much it owes to 'The Big Lebowski'.

The premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2023 couldn't have gone much worse: critics tore into it and there was a lot of talk about walkouts. Vertical released it in US cinemas in May 2024, and in Britain it went straight to Prime Video on 28 June. Pine says he watched it again after those reviews and still loves it. Will anyone else come round to it?

• Mystery
• Comedy