The Lifeguards 2024

Leigh London is a writer living in New York City, juggling a career as a journalist with a complicated relationship involving her engaged boss. At the story’s start, she faces the end of that affair and is assigned to report on a troubling tale: a tiger cub kept as a pet in a home, which died. The piece isn’t treated with the gravity she expects, and her confrontation with her boss and ex-lover leaves her emotionally shaken. Disillusioned with life in the city, she makes a bold choice to leave without telling her job and returns to her hometown.

Back home, Leigh’s mother questions her sudden return, while her father welcomes her with warmth, especially after Leigh announces she plans to stay indefinitely. She reopens a chapter of her past by reconnecting with two old friends, Todd, an art appraiser, and Mel, a vice principal. Over informal drinks, Leigh reveals that she’s taken up her high school job again as the community pool lifeguard, where she meets Little Jason, the maintenance man’s son. This new social circle draws her into a summer rhythm she hadn’t anticipated.

Over the following weeks, Leigh befriends Jason and his best friend, Matt, and she nudges her two former classmates toward bolder, wilder behavior. Todd goes along with the idea, and Mel follows suit, though her involvement creates tension at home as her husband grows frustrated with their carefree approach—and with the strain it places on their own plans to conceive a child. Leigh’s bond with Jason deepens as she recognizes a reciprocal attraction that she cannot ignore.

A spark turns into a full-blown romance, igniting after a late-night encounter in the pool’s changing room when Jason follows Leigh to the bathroom and they kiss. The kiss soon blossoms into a continuing relationship that lasts throughout the summer. Leigh realizes she’s fallen in love and persuades Jason to stay longer instead of moving to Vermont with Matt, who has been eager to leave town. Matt’s situation becomes more precarious; he’s been kicked out by his mother and clings to the hope of escaping the town.

As Vermont looms as a postponed option, the atmosphere grows heavier. Leigh’s growing attachment to Jason strains her relationships, especially with Mel, whose own life is under pressure as she and her husband navigate their marriage while trying to conceive. Leigh’s mother asks her to move out, and Leigh chooses to stay with Jason. A simple missing cat becomes a painful symbol of the fracturing lives around them, and Leigh and Jason band together to search for it. The hunt leads to a devastating discovery: Matt has hanged himself in the woods, his despair a stark counterpoint to Jason’s postponed Vermont dream.

Leigh steps forward to inform Matt’s mother, offering comfort as relatives arrive and standing by through the emotional aftermath. The couple’s pain is compounded by the loss, and Leigh later finds the missing cat near her parents’ house. At Matt’s funeral, Leigh finds a chance to repair fences, reconciling with Mel, and she and Jason share a poignant goodbye that seals the unspoken limits of their relationship as they prepare to leave town. Leigh gives Jason the $1,000 prize money she won as a journalist, a tangible reminder of what could have been—while tears betray the depth of what she feels. The final scene closes on a bittersweet note: a postcard from Jason saying he still thinks about her a lot, and a lingering acknowledgment that Matt’s memory remains as well.