Cocoon

What a wonderful thing it would be to swim in the fountain of youth?

Or in this case, a pool.

A group of elderly friends, living in a Florida retirement community, discover that the vacant home next door to their nursing home has a fabulous pool and start to use it.

In a later visit, unbeknown to them, the house has been let and strange barnacled boulders have now been added in the pool. After some deliberation, some of the old folks decide to proceed anyway and joyfully swim together.

Afterwards, to their amazement, they to begin notice vast mental sharpness and physical vitality, as though they shed 30 years from their bodies. They believe themselves to be growing younger as opposed to old and it doesn't take long for them to realise that its something to do with the pool...

It transpires that the pod-like forms at the bottom of the pool have been placed there by aliens. They are the cocooned alien survivors of the Atlantis disaster, and the aliens have come to recover them. The Aliens, called Antereans, are upset at the oldies use of the pool, because they have unwittingly sapped the life-force out of the pool and the pods.

After meeting and resolving this with the kind and charismatic Antereans, they are offered the most difficult ultimatum of their lives. Since the elders have discovered the secret of the youthful cocoons, they are offered to make a magnificent journey with the Antereans in return for their help in recovering the rest of the cocoons from the bottom of the ocean.

This means that the group of elders must decide to stay on earth and eventually die, or be transported to an unknown dimension where they will live forever, excluding the company of their families.

The main characters want to live long lives to witness the growth of their children and grandchildren that they may be deprived of if they choose to stay on earth. They all eventually make a pact to keep their findings a secret and decide to go away to an unknown world and become immortal.

Each elder faces a daunting scene in which they must tell a loved one their good-byes without revealing their destination and reasoning. A heartfelt scene is shared between grandpa Ben, (Wilford Brimley) and grandson David, (Barret Oliver), on a fishing trip. Brimley tells his cherished grandson that he is leaving and may not be back. This scene is so emotional because it is something every loved-one dreads; losing a family member.

After realizing the devastation that David may face to losing his grandparents, he sets off on a series of events to help get his grandparents and their friends to the Aneterans boat and set off to another world. David faces having to sneek out of his house and illegally drives past the retirement community security guards in order to set up an escape route for the elders.

The movie concludes with moving scenes that would surely touch even the most hard-hearted viewer

Goodbyes are always difficult in any occasion, but when you don’t know if you will ever see the person again, it’s even harder to fathom. The viewer feels a great deal of freedom and liberation as well as loss and regret, only hoping for a sequel to this outstanding movie.