Movie reviews: 'The Pool,' 'Call+Response,' 'The Grocer's Son'

★★★ out of four stars

Unrated by the MPAA; suitable for all audiences. In Hindi with English subtitles.

Where: Lagoon.

With "The Pool," Milwaukee indie icon Chris Smith takes an impressive leap forward in an already impressive career. His hilarious "American Movie," a documentary about a struggling horror auteur, his droll pseudo-doc exposé of dead-end employment "American Job," and his satirical attack on corporate herd-think "The Yes Men" established Smith as a humanist with a wicked sense of humor. His new film, set in southwestern India, shows that his sympathy for underdogs extends across language, geography and social customs.

Vankatesh (Vankatesh Chavan) is an illiterate 18-year-old who works as a hotel janitor and day laborer. When he discovers a sparkling azure swimming pool behind an upper-class family's estate, he's transfixed by its beauty. It's a resonant symbol of luxuries he'll never enjoy, but also a mystery. No matter how hot the weather, no one ever takes a dip.

Spying on the pool from a nearby tree branch, he observes the impassive owner, Nana (Bollywood star Nana Patekar), and the man's spoiled daughter, Ayesha (Ayesha Mohan). Vankatesh pesters the rich man into giving him a job as his yard boy, bringing him tantalizingly close to the still, unapproachable pool, and a cross-caste friendship begins to flourish between the three. Vankatesh begins to lead a life of prosperity-by-association he never would have dreamed, with the wealthy father and daughter taking a kindly interest in him, but the boundaries of that relationship are poignantly apparent.

With handheld camerawork and a mostly nonprofessional cast, "The Pool" has a feeling of authenticity. The locations never feel like local-color tourist stops, but rather the real world the characters inhabit. By pushing himself far outside his Midwestern comfort zone and working with non-actors in a language he doesn't speak, Smith has created a fable with universal appeal.

★★ out of four stars

Rated: PG-13, mature thematic material, disturbing content and drug references.

Where: Arbor Lakes.

Probably the most shocking thing in this self-styled rockumentary about international human trafficking is the two little Cambodian girls in a brothel offering to perform oral sex for an investigator with a hidden camera. It is the kind of thing that makes you think the death penalty is entirely too kind a fate for the perpetrators of such degradation, and it's that sort of revulsion and activism that musician and director Justin Dillon is out to generate in this very uneven labor of love.

The movie alternates among interviews with activists, journalists, scholars, politicians and celebrities concerned about the issue, interview clips with young women forced into sex trafficking, and video clips of musical groups performing songs about slavery.

NEELY TUCKER, WASHINGTON POST

★★★ out of four stars

Unrated but includes sex, nudity, profanity, adult themes. In French , subtitled.

Where: Edina.

The rolling countryside of Provence may be a dream vacation spot, but it is the last place in the world that 30-year-old Antoine (Nicolas Cazalé) would like to be. Still, after his father has a heart attack, someone has to run the family's business, a van selling produce and staples.

Slowly Antoine warms to the rural environment and begins to feel a tentative happiness and community spirit. A surprise hit in France, the film is a triumphant accumulation of quirky, perfectly observed details. Cazalé's subtle performance keeps this upbeat movie from curdling into a sentimental ad for the simple life.