The Pool review: Sydney documentary is beautiful but shallow

The swimming club at the heart of The Pool is iconic. Think of Sydney and the sleek white lines of Bondi Icebergs, where twin saltwater pools meet the sea, will surely spring to mind.

Since this thronging spot opened in 1929, thousands have made a splash here as the breakers crash over the boundary, requiring a weekly drain and clean to remove the detritus of sand, seaweed and all the rest.

It’s a visually resplendent spot, then, for Paul Kelly – Stories of Me director Ian Darling to spend a year recording the daily churn of this beloved icon, interviewing those who work there as well as the many swimmers who frequent its crowded lanes, both regular and blow-ins.

Watch the trailer for The Pool.

There’s the gent who has been attending the pool for 50 years on top of his daily swim across the bay, as if he simply can’t get enough of the surf. A swim teacher talks about how regular dips helped her feel as if the ‘yuck’ of cancer was being washed away during her treatment.

One young man is reminded of the lanes’ directional etiquette. International tourists who obviously aren’t confident swimmers crab walk around the pool’s edge only to be tetchily schooled by attendants.

A Lebanese boxer once got caught in a rip in Dubai. It wasn’t until he moved to Sydney and signed up at Icebergs that he could finally knock the phobia out. ‘Making yourself do uncomfortable things is the best cure for unhealthy things in your mind,’ he says.

A mother swimming with her two sons recalls that she was there on each of the mornings they were born, with time for a coffee in the attendant Icebergs Lounge before. The barista notes that of the millions that filter through Icebergs for a brew, he often knows them only by their order, rather than their name. This half-joke aside, Darling’s film is centred on community, on what makes this place more than simply just another pool with a wonderful view.

The Pool: how deep is your love?

It’s a shame he loses sight of this thread in the foam. The stunning cinematography of Benjamin Cunningham, dipping in and out of the pool, pairs well with a hypnotic score by Paul Charlier, inducing the shivering tingle of the Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (AMSR). 

But this isn’t a YouTube video playing in the background or a promotional clip for the pool itself. It’s a feature-length documentary that can only hold our attention for so long without a richness of storytelling to keep it afloat.

Half an hour in, I found myself wondering when The Pool would delve deeper and really let us get to know any of its subjects. Darling, who delivered a powerful treatise on racism in this country through his pained portrait of the end of Sydney Swans player Adam Goodes’ career, The Final Quarter, appears unable to grasp the bigger picture.

For just over 90 minutes, we listen to short interview snippets mostly under a minute long, many of which repeat very similar stories and with precious little diversity on show. A niggling feeling creeps in that something’s missing. Darling and his regular editor, Sally Fryer, have gone far too wide, losing the focus a closer look at a smaller group would have brought.

The Pool: short shrift

There are interesting angles that get short shrift. An Irish immigrant says he was amazed, on first attending, that all the millionaires and paupers are in there together, but that’s all we’ll get about how class plays into the pools. The reality of the workers who tend to their upkeep after hours is but a fleeting aside, despite these after-dark moments being among the film’s most intriguing.

The grisliness some older women faced from indignantly huffing sexists when they were first invited in is similarly discarded over the wave-crashed walls.

On that latter point, there’s a nice line from one dedicated swimmer on the way the cement of Icebergs’ pools circles history. If only Darling had allowed the more interesting stories more room to breathe. As gorgeously shot, scored and calming as it is, The Pool is a navel-gazing curio for those Icebergs regulars whose belly buttons are abundantly on show.

Ultimately, it feels a little too shallow.

The Pool opens in select cinemas on 7 November 2024.

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