Movie reviews: 'Night Swim' is waterlogged and never gets out of the shallow end

NIGHT SWIM: 2 STARS

Aquaphobia, the fear of water, is a real thing. But I’m not sure what you call the phobia at the heart of “Night Swim,” a new horror film starring Wyatt Russell and now playing in theatres.

Based on the acclaimed 2014 short film by Rod Blackhurst and Bryce McGuire, the story of a haunted swimming pool begins as major league baseball player Ray Waller’s (Russell) career ends due to a degenerative illness.

“You’ll always be a baseball player,” his wife Eve (Kerry Condon) tells him, “but that’s not all you are.”

Rebooting his life, he moves into a fixer-upper with Eve, teenage daughter Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle) and young son Elliot (Gavin Warren).

The house has seen better days, but there is a great school nearby and Ray thinks the backyard pool is the perfect place for the kids to play and for him to work out as a form of physical therapy.

When the renovations are complete, the family enjoys the pool, swimming and playing Marco Polo. “This pool’s the greatest thing that ever happened to me,” Ray says as his health takes an uptick.

But soon, strange things happen.

“My kids have seen things,” says Eve, “and I’m afraid something is happening to my husband.”

Voices and visions from the deep end of the pool torment them as a malevolent force somehow is able to identify the family’s wants and desires. But at what price?

“Night Swim” begins with a flashback to 1992 that effectively sets up the pool as a watery menace. Unfortunately, the movie belly flops from there. The idea of drowning is terrifying, especially if someone or something is pulling at your legs, or pushing your head under the surface, but in the theatre you’ll find yourself playing Marco Polo in search of actual scares.

Russell and Condon are blandly appealing in the leads. Both are overshadowed by the kids, Hoeferle and Warren, who, as siblings caught up in a supernatural water trap, raise the story’s stakes. You don’t want anything bad to happen to them, but you do want SOMETHING to happen other than jump scares.

By the time director Bryce McGuire reveals the source of the evil, and offers up an unspeakable solution to the family’s problems, the movie is waterlogged, too soggy to have much of an impact. “Night Swim” never gets out of the shallow end.

ALL OF US STRANGERS: 4 STARS

There will likely not be a more melancholic movie this year than “All of Us Strangers,” a new, otherworldly study of grief, adapted from a Japanese ghost story by Taichi Yamada, that is grounded by real, earthbound emotion.

Andrew Scott, best known for portraying James Moriarty in the BBC series “Sherlock,” and his role as the “hot priest” on “Fleabag,” is lonely screenwriter Adam. He lives alone in an abandoned London high rise, empty save for Harry (Paul Mescal), who lives on the sixth floor.

They meet when Harry, unannounced, arrives at Adam’s door with a bottle of whiskey. “I saw you looking at me from the street,” he says. “I’ve seen you a bunch of times, coming and going with your head down.” He's fishing for an invite in, but Adam keeps the door between them.

Adam’s new project is a script set in 1987. To put himself in the right mindset he listens to music from the era, and makes a visit to his childhood home. There, he encounters the ghosts of his parents, played with warmth by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell. Killed in a car accident when Adam was twelve, they are stuck in 1987, while he exists in present day.

“You were just a boy,” says mom, “but now you’re not. You look different but it’s you. I thought you’d be hairier, like your dad.”

Visiting with these apparitions from the past provides a measure of closure for him, as he attempts to make up for decades of missed moments.

Back in London, he and Harry begin a relationship, the first meaningful connection of his adult life. “I’d always felt alone,” says Adam. “This is a new feeling.”

“All of Us Strangers” is a supernatural family drama, but it isn’t an “I see dead people” rehash. It is a chance for Adam to get to know the parents who left him, to tell them about his life, hear them tell them they love him and are proud of him, and possibly most importantly, get to say goodbye. It’s a work of melancholy, a study of one man coping with grief and loss, that is both gentle and devastating.

It’s never clear whether the parents are hallucinations, dreams or actual ghosts, but Scott’s contemplative performance renders that question moot. What’s important is Adam’s relationship to them, how they make him feel, not if they are real or not.

You may question what is real, and what is not throughout, but the individual moments—a father embracing his son for sins committed years ago, a mother’s comforting touch, Harry and Adam relaxing at home, happy and in love—feel real, and are by times moving, painful and utterly earthbound expressions of the power of love in the face of Adam’s unbearable loneliness.

“All of Us Strangers” is an intimate, haunting film that comforts and aches in equal measure.

GOOD GRIEF: 3 STARS

The alliteration in the title of “Good Grief,” Dan Levy’s feature film debut for Netflix, continues into the storytelling. Mawkish and moving, romantic and realist, it’s a story of loss, lamentation and life that allows Levy to stretch his wings as a writer, director and performer.

Levy plays Marc, an artist who put his career on semi-hold as his superstar writer husband Oliver’s (Luke Evans) sci-fi fantasy novels topped the best-seller lists. Tragedy strikes as Marc hosts a holiday party in their beautifully appointed London apartment before Oliver jets off to Paris for a book signing at the Louvre.

Minutes after Oliver leaves the warm, fuzzy celebration, sirens fill the air and Marc’s worst fears are realized. Oliver has been killed in a car accident, just a block from their flat.

Shattered by the loss, and the recent death of his mother, Marc withdraws, save for the company of his two closest friends, ex-boyfriend Thomas (Himesh Patel) and loose-cannon Sophie (Ruth Negga).

“For such a meticulous person,” Marc says of Oliver, “he left behind one hell of a mess.”

With the American publishing company demanding a return on Oliver’s unfinished book advances, a careful study of the couple’s expenses reveal the writer kept a secret pied-à-terre in Paris. Curious, Marc invites Thomas and Sophie for a weekend visit to Paris as a thank you for helping him through a very difficult year.

“This is where people come to have sex,” Sophie yowls as they lay eyes on Oliver’s secret getaway.

As the City of Lights twinkles appealingly in the background, the trio confront the ragged truths of messy relationships and forge a path forward.

“Good Grief” is a study in the good, the bad and the ugly of relationships, romantic and platonic. This isn’t like a sad episode of Levy’s sitcom “Schitt's Creek” and it’s not a ten Kleenex weepie. It’s somewhere in between. There are funny moments (see Kaitlyn Dever’s inappropriate eulogy at Oliver’s funeral for example) and humourous lines, but they are tempered by the central trio’s journey to understand the melancholic messes they have made of their lives.

It’s a mix-and-match of love and sadness with subtle shadings of romantic and road trip comedy, but it never dims the stark light it shines on the realities of friendship. Hard questions are asked and addressed, but at the end it suggests these characters don’t have their acts together, because, really, who does?

It may not be the most original thought, but this is a promising feature film directorial debut that works best when it plays it simple. A scene of the three of them on a Ferris Wheel is revealing, sweet and funny, and Marc’s scenes with Theo (Arnaud Valois), a French man he meets at an art installation, despite some clunky dialogue (“Isn’t art kind of a commemoration of pain?”) are among the film’s best.

“Good Grief” is an open-hearted, amiable film that displays Levy’s abilities as a director. It’s a handsomely mounted movie with a keen eye for casting. Luke Evans is particularly well suited to play the movie’s McGuffin, and capitalizes on his modest screentime. Patel and Negga make the most of their sidekick roles and Paris looks beautiful. Most of all, however, it’s unafraid to defy the expectations we might have had for Levy’s follow-up to the success of his award winning “Schitt's Creek.”