It stars Sam Elliott, Anne Archer, Stephen Young, Parker Stevenson, and Kathleen Quinlan.

[3][4] The film follows Rick Carlson, a Southern California lifeguard who is prompted to reexamine his life when he attends his high school reunion.

Rick Carlson, a 32-year-old career lifeguard in Southern California, enjoys a commitment-free life of casual relationships.

For the summer, he trains Chris Randolph, a college student and temporary weekend assistant.

While on duty, Rick is approached by Wendy, a 17-year-old girl who has moved to the area from San Diego with her family.

Rick seems embarrassed about still being a lifeguard and begins to lie about why he is so tanned, claiming that he works an outdoors job for the county.

With the summer season winding down, Larry returns to the beach one more time to offer Rick a job selling Porsches.

Rick turns it down definitively, despite realizing that it will probably mean an end to his relationship with Cathy, who has been encouraging him to become more upwardly mobile.

[7][8][9] However, it was considered a breakthrough for Elliott,[10][7] with the actor saying, "Dan Petrie did a great job directing that movie; it was shot for something like only $900,000.

"[15] Time Out wrote the film "manages to perform an interesting autopsy on the psyche of the American male".

[16] Filmmaker David Frankel selected the film for a New York Times piece on favorite summer movies.

[4] In Through the Shattered Lens, Lisa Marie Bowman wrote, "The attempts to mix drama and comedy often lead to uneven results and Anne Archer, Parker Stevenson, and Stephen Young are stuck with underwritten characters…When the film does work, it’s due to the performances of Kathleen Quinlan and Sam Elliot.

"[17] In a 2013 review for DVD Talk, Glenn Erickson said the film "captures a particular So-Cal beach vibe during a brief post-pill, pre-AIDS patch of time when a significant segment of the singles scene actually treated sex as a kind of heightened recreational activity", and noted that some elements, including the relationship with Wendy and the lightness with which the screenplay treats indecent exposure, are plainly dated.