I love Kristen Bell from Veronica Mars so much that I keep watching her in crappy movies. Don’t be me! The Lifeguard is about the third life crisis of a formerly high-achieving journalist who runs away from her adult life in NYC, including a failed relationship with her engaged boss, after she relates to the captive subject of one of her stories. She returns to her childhood home and resumes her high school job of being a pool lifeguard thus inadvertently disrupting the lives of those that she loves.
The Lifeguard isn’t completely bad. I actually found her friends and mother more interesting than the main character. There is some nugget of truth that the perfect time to embrace the rebelliousness and adventure of life is when you’re older before you become completely disenchanted with comparing and contrasting where you thought you would be with where you actually are. The Lifeguard initially creates an amazing display of how intergenerational relationships can give protection and to the younger ones that even though everything seems so dramatic, they can survive and thrive and remind the older ones what it is like to not be so serious. The Lifeguard does not idealize adult juvenile behavior and does show the negative consequences of escapism, but I’m not sure if the makers of The Lifeguard realized that they didn’t have to

SPOILER ALERT

kill off a tertiary character to do so. The Lifeguard makes the main character’s sexual relationship with an underage boy in his teens seem like a rejuvenating factor for her and a positive relationship instead of possibly causing irreparable damage for him. Only one character takes it seriously, and she is more concerned with her duties than the fact that at some level, even if the underage boy consented, the main character my have taken advantage of his vulnerable situation and raped him. His father brushes it off and is even fine with her staying in his son’s room. The only person with sense is the cat who ditches her and has had enough of her immaturity. The Lifeguard trivializes the real damage caused by older women in positions of authority who exploit those in their change and most vulnerable for sexual purposes and perpetuates the myth that young men are just thrilled because they get to have lots of sex with a hot, older woman. Once again, The Lifeguard could use ‪#‎crimingwhilewhite‬ for its moniker because there are no consequences for smoking weed with and raping teens. Instead The Lifeguard depicts it as a necessary, rejuvenating break on the return trip to finding yourself. The Lifeguard is guilty of privileging the voice of the perpetrator instead of the thoughts of the vulnerable.