Cult figure Robert Downey, Sr. directed this offbeat comedy set in the eccentric environs of Los Angeles. Hugo Dugay (
Alyssa Milano) is a young woman who makes her living cleaning swimming pools when she isn't busy looking after her mother Minerva (
Cathy Moriarty), who's hooked on gambling, and her father Henry (
Malcolm McDowell), who's hooked on alcohol and a number of drugs. One day, Hugo finds herself with over 40 pools to look after, complicated by the fact that L.A. is in the midst of a drought and she's forbidden to use city water lines to fill them. This is especially unwelcome news for Chick Chicalini (
Richard Lewis), a crime boss who is having a party and insists on having a clean pool with fresh water for the occasion. In hopes of easing Chick's anxieties, she cooks up a complicated scheme involving a tanker truck and a quick trip to the Colorado River. Hugo also encounters a mysterious hitchhiker (
Sean Penn) who may have magical powers and deals with other customers, including overwrought filmmaker Franz (Robert Downey, Jr.), and Floyd (
Patrick Dempsey), a handsome man with whom Hugo is falling in love, despite the fact that he's suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. Robert Downey, Sr. co-wrote Hugo Pool with his wife Laura Downey, who herself died from ALS at the age of 36. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide