by Douglas Messerli
Luke Willis (screenwriter and director) Pool Boy / 2021 [10 minutes]
Of the six short films I viewed from this
year’s Newfest showings this past work by another Los Angeles-based director,
Luke Willis, is perhaps the most interesting simply because it considers an
issue that is very rare to date in the LGBTQ cinema catalogue.
Responding somewhat positively to all of these salutations, Austin is
nonetheless strangely unresponsive even seeming disinterested. However, when he
hears the arrival and scape of the pool boy and his net, he immediately grabs
his sketch book and speeds off to the family pool where he engages the “pool
boy” formerly named Paul in conversation. Evidently he (played by
American-Salvadorian actor River Gallo who prefers the pronoun “they”) has been
helping Austin with his sketches, presumably also being an artist outside his
role as the pool cleaner. And apparently, the two have bonded, if not more,
since Austin almost seems to quiver with pleasure around the individual who now
has renamed theirselves “Star.” As Austin begins showing his art, some of the work
being sketches of Star, his friend Jake suddenly appears, intruding on the
duo’s evident intimacy, forcing them to pull back from the sensuous touch of
each other’s fingers.
Jake is the kind of self-assured, pushy jock with whom there is not real
communication unless it concerns girls, drugs, drink, and old times—all
obviously uninteresting any longer to Austin. Austin attempts to steer his
friend away from the pool and pool boy as quickly as possible, but is unable to
manage it before Jake, after referring to “him” as “Paul.” is corrected about
the name change, and then begins to make jokes about Star now being even more
than a queer.
The boys retreat to the apartment, smoking what appears to be hashish,
Jake again insisting that Austin simply has to attend the beach party the next
day since everyone is expecting him. Austin half-heartedly agrees to be there.
But even in these early scenes of the film we already wonder whether or not he
can truly break with the heteronormative world in which he has spent most of
his life and join Star as he also promised on their day off to “discuss art.”
In order to show us just how transfixed Austin has become by his new
non-binary friend, director Willis takes us through an erotic dream of Austin
where the two sensuously kiss and join in sex in a manner that far outshines
many of the gay sex scenes of the standard “coming out” films. Swathed in
purple, bluish, and red tones Austin makes love to Star in an almost ecstatic
manner that certainly convinces us of his complete adoration of the artist and
pool cleaner.
When morning arrives, the doorbell rings, as Austin eagerly runs to the
door, far too early in the day we suspect for a trip to the beach. There Star
waits, their hair loosened from its previously ponytail, they wearing a sheik
non-gender identifying outfit.
“So you’re not going to the beach,” they ask. “What are you going to
tell them”
“That I am spending the day with you.”
The
two stand in the doorway in near adoration of each other as the film ends.
Born and raised by Salvadorian parents in New Jersey, River Gallo was
classified as “intersex” at the age of 12 and was offered hormone therapy and
surgery to insert prosthetic testicles. The result, so an article by Corina J
Poore published at the online Latino Life reports: “was that they have
become activists and outspoken critics of unnecessary cosmetic surgeries
performed on children with atypical genitals, who are not old enough to given
an informed consent.”
Gallo, who graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts
Experimental Theatre Wing and received an MFA from the University of Southern
California’s School of Cinematic Arts, starred in the short film Ponyboi (2019)
before taking on the role of the Pool Boy of Luke Willis’ film.
Los Angeles, October 22, 2021
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (October
2021).
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