Wet Bum

It’s spring term in a small town: swimming lessons, hanging out with your best friends, new classes and new possibilities. But this year, things are different for 14-year-old Sam. Her friends are moving on, focusing on boys, experimenting with drugs, while Sam is too uncomfortable to even take off her bathing suit in front of the other more developed girls. The community pool is where her deepest insecurities and raging hormones express themselves. Sam is constantly bullied and teased by the other girls at their lifeguard-training course. The only solace she finds is underwater where she begins to fixate on the teenage legs of Lukas, her 17-year-old swimming instructor, as they dangle in the pool. Over the course of the semester, Sam finds herself in over her head and out of her comfort zone attempting to gain Lukas’ attention. To make matters worse, Sam falls victim to a skinny dipping prank set by her former friend Molly at the local pool. Furious, her mother forces her to take some responsibility and work as a cleaning lady at the family-run retirement home. This is not how Sam imagined her year. As Sam becomes increasingly isolated from her friends and family, she gravitates towards two residents: Judith, a mysterious woman who keeps a watchful eye on Sam, and Ed, an erratic and grumpy widower determined to escape to his old home. Sam searches for answers: What were their lives like before? What secrets do they still carry with them? Ed initially shuts out Sam completely. But as the two slowly get to know one another they discover they are more alike than they think. In an attempt to get close to Lukas, Sam convinces him to help Ed return to his old home. At this crumbling old farmhouse, Lukas shows a frightening side that turns Sam’s world upside down, while Ed plays the unlikely hero giving Sam the self-respect and courage to stand up to Lukas and Molly. At its core, Wet Bum is a unique coming-of-age story that spans generations, in which both the young and the elderly come to rely on one another to grow up.