Swimming Pool (2003) User Reviews

Well made and literate.

[Bright_Night · 7/10 · 13 January 2004]

Swimming Pool contained good symbolism, acting, and especially great cinematography. The movie was really too slow for me for the first 70 mintues, however, and I kept wondering, what is the point of painting us a pictures of this dour and unhappy author's interactions with a lustful irresponsible bratty young woman? Although I admired the character portrayal and felt the movie visually artistic and even brilliant at times, I was not emotionally invested in Sarah Morton enough nor in Julie's to care. However, the ending changed all of that.

*** SPOILERS BELOW!***

The twist at the end reminded me of Fight Club and and Sixth Sense, where all of a sudden the viewer realizes he percieved everything through the wrong lens. When the twist reveals that the Julie we've seen never existed, all of a sudden everything in the story takes a deeper meaning and we can appreciate all the time it took to create a detailed character study of Sarah Morton.

I really enjoyed how literate this movie was, the symbolism very well constructed. It's funny how people either critisize or praise all the nudity and sexuality common in European film, however here nudity and sexuality were intrinsically necessary because they were such a crucial component underlying the mechanics of Sarah Morton's personality. She was so repressed! I really liked how Julie's appetite for sex, rich food, and swimming in the "dirty" pool was a mirror for just how badly Sarah lacked all of these things. I especially loved the scenes where Sarah eats yogurt and wheat germ. Here we have a woman, who although she is super wealthy and can afford any type of food, instead chooses to deprieve herself of such a basic source of pleasure as eating appetizing food.

It is a nice contradiction that Sarah is very wealthy on the outside yet starving (for good food, sexuality, a zest for living, creativity) on the inside. This movie further gives evidence to the fact that fame and wealth are not a guarantee of genuine happiness in life.

The ending to this film made it all worthwhile, however and it is very exciting when we feel we need a 2nd viewing of a movie to really absorb it all. I will watch it again and who knows? I might not find the first 70 minutes too slow after all.

Anything but dull

[The_Void · 8/10 · 23 March 2005]

Swimming Pool is a first rate film from French genius François Ozon. This thriller makes best use of everything that makes cinema great, and it is therefore a delight to view. Swimming Pool follows Sarah Morton, a British author that travels to her publisher's dream home in France in order to have a rest while she works on her new book. However, her tranquillity is soon disturbed when her publisher's daughter; a sex-crazed, good time girl, turns up out of the blue and turns Morton's rest into something quite different. One criticism that could be, and has been, made of this film is that not a lot a lot happens. That, however, depends on your viewpoint; the action is stretched, but the relaxed tone of the film blends magnificently with the beautiful French scenery, and Ozon's attention to detail with the characters ensures that, although slow, Swimming Pool never descends into boredom and there's always something on offer for it's audience to enjoy. I, personally, was completely entranced from start to finish.

The casting of Charlotte Rampling as the uptight British novelist really was an inspired move. She's absolutely brilliant in the role, and you can't imagine anyone else playing that character to such a degree. Speaking of great casting choices, Ludivine Sagnier is similarly brilliant as Rampling's sexy co-star. She brings just the right amount of insecurity and lustfulness to her role, and it's not hard to see why Ozon continues to cast her in his movies. The film is very melodramatic, but never overacted; and this is a testament to the quality of acting on display. Swimming Pool benefits implicitly from a haunting soundtrack, which perfectly accents the happenings on screen, and certain points in the movie where the soundtrack is used are truly electrifying. François Ozon is truly one of cinema's greatest assets at the moment. This is only my second taste of his work (the hilariously fabulous 'Sitcom' being the other), and if his backlog and future releases match the quality of the two films I've seen from him so far; he may well become one of cinema's all time greats.

A Mostly Effective Erotic Thriller

[evanston_dad · 7/10 · 29 April 2005]

Makers of erotic thrillers need to be careful, as that is a genre that, if not handled carefully, can quickly fall prey to silliness and excess (think "Fatal Attraction"). "Swimming Pool" is a thriller in the style of "The Deep End," and more than once I was struck by similarities between the two in their respective tones and reliance on water as a recurring visual motif. Also, both films have a middle-aged female as the protagonist who becomes involved in covering up for the actions of a child (in "The Deep End" a literal child, in "Swimming Pool" a figurative one). Also, both films are completely unpredictable. Neither goes the direction in which the viewer thinks it's going to. However, "Swimming Pool" is much more abstract, and its ending leaves you wanting to watch the whole thing over immediately with an entirely different perspective on the action. This gimmick always makes for a memorable ending in movies that employ it, but too often it makes the rest of the movie seem somewhat pale in comparison, and this is the case here. "Swimming Pool" plays tricks with your perceptions, but the finale to which the film builds seems somewhat anti-climactic when it finally comes.

It's a leisurely paced film, and you'll need to have patience with it. You'll also need to have patience with the main character, played by Charlotte Rampling. Rampling gives a fine performance, but her character is really unlikable (intentionally so), and it's always a liability for any story that focuses almost solely on one person to make that person unlikable, or at least sympathetic.

"Swimming Pool," though billed as an erotic thriller, is really about the creative process (I think), and I won't say anymore about that because to do so will give away the ending. It's an interesting idea, imperfectly executed.

Grade: B

Spoiler: Sarah is a woman, not a machine

[big-16 · 29 May 2004]

I saw the movie today. I think Sarah feels that everybody sees her as an object, not as a woman with sexual longings and desires. (You know, the same way we think of our parents or grandparents.) I don't think she ever had an affair with John. John simply seems as the only Male (sexual) Connection she has in her life. She gets jealous of the new writer, because he is flavour of the week with the publisher John. She craves for some attention, not as a money making machine, but as a WOMAN. She leaves for France, and tries to leave the mother-side of her womanhood behind (even if just for a little while) She finds it hard (because she still phones her father to see if he is all right, but only once in the beginning.) She doesn't want to be seen as a mother, but as a woman. She feels weird getting in touch with her sexual side. Our true selves always come out if there is no one watching over your shoulder, but there always is. That is why she removes the cross from the wall, because she feels uncomfortable going on this journey with God watching over her shoulder.

She meets Marcel and Franck. She finds Franck attractive, but she is so used to the way that people see her and she actually sees herself, that she doesn't make a real effort to flirt with him. She forms this fantasy alter-ego named Julie. Julie is everything Sarah longs to be. Everyone sees her as an object of desire. Julie is the manifestation of the journey that Sarah is on. Julie is free and very in touch with all aspects of her sexuality. Many woman find it hard to get comfortable with certain aspects of sexuality, because they are brought up that only "bad girls" do certain things. Things like abortion, masturbation and oral sex are often things that woman battle with. Julie has scars that seems to have connotations to childbirth, but I think it is a visual way to lead the viewer to think of another element associated with "bad girls" namely abortion. Therefore, Julie is the one masturbating, having oral sex and maybe having abortions, not Sarah (but Sarah is in fact the one making peace with these (foreign) concepts. Julie attacks Sarah as a moral prude that is too scared to do the things she writes and thinks about. This is merely a personification of the battle raging within Sarah.

Sarah and Julie then become friends, which shows that she is making peace with herself. The killing of Franck doesn't actually happen, it merely shows that she is reaching the end of her journey. She is now willing to do the things she writes, thinks and fantasize about. The burying of "dead Franck" symbolises the burial of the "old" Sarah. That is when she tries out the NEW Sarah on old man Marcel. He was about to dig up the "old" Sarah, and the "new" Sarah wouldn't let that happen. Also, he won't reject her, because he can't believe his luck. Julie gives her a book that her mother wrote. This just shows that the fantasy of Julie resulted in a new book, as well as a new chapter in Sarah's life. The viewer can clearly see a transformation in the way Sarah is presented. In the beginning she is stern and her clothing is very unflattering. She drinks whiskey early in the morning, even when the man at the bar is drinking coffee. She is more of a man than he is! During the movie you can clearly see that Sarah's clothing becomes more and more feminine.

At the end she is dressed very pretty and ladylike. She goes to John and proposes her new book, but he shoots it down. However, Sarah now has the courage to offer herself to someone else who will look at her differently, since John makes it clear that he feels more comfortable seeing her as a money-making machine in stead of a sexual object. The waving at the end is simply a way of showing that Sarah does not need Julie anymore. Sarah now feels free enough to truly live as a multi facetted person.

So Fantasy Julie never exists as a real person, neither does any of the men she has sex with. They simply personify emotional, sexual and spiritual concepts Sarah encounters on her journey to sexual freedom. She actually met the person named Franck, but he merely became part of her fantasy. John has a daughter named Julie, and her mother was probably killed in an accident. But the person Julie has nothing to do with fantasy Julie. Sarah resented John for not seeing her in a sexual way, and that lead to the creation of a persona that shared her resentment towards John's sexuality. Julie said he was the king of orgies. So he (John) will shag everyone, except lonely Sarah.

Nicely done, a treat

[Rocketansky · 7/10 · 6 January 2009]

If you've had enough gasoline explosions, car chases, and bang-yer-head obvious plots, here is something Completely Different.

I'm assuming you've seen the movie so if you haven't, please read no further.

Anyone who has written a fiction book all the way through (I've finished several) will recognize the writing process as embodied masterfully in this film. That is, being inspired by the oddest and most nondescript objects. Or writing entire chapters and realizing they're crap and don't fit in. Or just the opposite: finishing your story and realizing at the "end" you forgot something critical and need to go rewrite part of it...sometimes a BIG part of it. AND the tremendous satisfaction when you realize you've created something that a) was inside you that just had to come out and b) is the best work you can do and c) others will enjoy reading.

This film is complex enough that there are undoubtedly many interpretations possible. The one I find personally fulfilling, and that fits perfectly with the final twist, is a wonderfully-executed attempt to bring the abstract, weird, and sometimes outright bizarre process of fiction writing to the screen. From INSIDE the author's mind. I've only seen the movie once, but I can't remember a single scene without Sarah in it. This film was about her exclusively, from her POV, about what was going on in her mind...ultimately the creative process of writing. There were other characters, but with very few exceptions they existed as HER characters, walking the stage she created.

A simple example. Franck started as a minor character, a waiter at an outdoor café. As often happens during the writing process, his importance changes. In fact, it was the pool scene with him standing over Julie that first convinced me I was watching a depiction of the writing process. You see, the concept of Franck becoming involved with Julie was a plot possibility, a concept, an idea that became stillborn. AT THAT TIME Sarah discarded it, not wanting to take that plot path. Later, when Sarah had visited the café several times and become more familiar with Franck (real or not, it doesn't matter) she realized he could become a more important character in her story by having Julie bring him into the plot via a more fully-developed twist. And so on.

To those who thought this movie was one strange and convoluted puppy, I'll say that fiction writing is one strange and convoluted process! It's captured as well as I can imagine in this effort.

A previous reviewer perfectly interpreted the smile on Sarah's face in the last scene at John's office -- one of an author's satisfaction and pride on a job well done.

At the very end, Sarah waves to her two creations, not goodbye, but in thanks. Authors are always grateful to their characters wherever they may come from, since without them there can be no story.

Alluring and Deceptive, Beautifully Spare, Sometimes Slow

[secondtake · 7/10 · 18 July 2009]

Swimming Pool (2003)

All I had heard before recently viewing Francois Ozon's Swimming Pool is that the lead actress, Ludivine Sagnier, was searingly sexy. Well, if that's what you want in a movie, you might agree. But it lowered my expectations, nearly to the point of not watching it. In the end, Sagnier's character is mostly coy and bratty, and her nudity, in France around her own very private swimming pool, shouldn't really be an issue-- except maybe for the viewer. For me, there was sometimes a mismatch in my head between watching the actress and watching the character, and if this is a flaw in some movies, here, in some basic way, it ties into the intention.

This is an odd starting point, for sure, but it is Sagnier's brazen outwardness that makes the more complex role played by Charlotte Rampling take on interest. How else to portray the theme of a woman who uses her body and her confidence to seduce the other characters in front of an older woman who wishes she could do the same? Swimming Pool really isn't about sex, but it absolutely is about the appearances that lead to sex--of being sexy, to put it a little stupidly--and Rampling increasingly takes on the role of viewer within her own character, and she ends up as perplexed as we do. All to good effect.

The minimal plot is about the failure by a successful novelist to see alluring from allusion, fact from fantasy. It's about storytelling, fiction, and ultimately fear of failure. The reconstruction of the past becomes the inner confusion in the mind of the main character, a charming and effective Rampling playing a novelist who was once, by all the hints, the very seductress suggested by the younger woman.

This is certainly a film worth watching. For some it will seem willfully confusing to the point of manipulation--the viewer is fooled and taken for a ride, and it feels confusing for the sake of confusion. For others it will seem endlessly mysterious and clever, even if requiring a kind of blindness to certain narrative conflicts (which may or may not be logically resolved by the end--I watched parts a second time to check). Right from the start there is an ingenious mismatch of facts that you start to brush off, and when things develop in ways I don't dare suggest for fear of ruining it, these clues grow in meaning. It will certainly be great for discussion, heated or not, and that's a sign (for me) of a good experience, though not necessarily a superior movie.

It is notable how economical the filming is--the setting is limited, the characters few, the range of situations reasonable and not requiring trickery or effects. And it comes down to Rampling, above all, holding the psychology together. It shows how little you need to take a good plot idea and flesh it out, sexist voyeurism or not.

Excellent

[swikect · 7/10 · 23 July 2006]

I first saw this film on HBO in 2005 and now own it. HBO and others continue to run it. It is a very mature, engrossing film with a metaphorical plot. From the opening credits it immediately begs for your attention and once it has you in its grasp, you will find you cannot escape. A successful author of a series of mystery novels but bored with her work, Charlotte Rampling goes to the south of France for looking for fresh ideas for a new book, begins down one avenue and then changes direction. The location, photography and performances are exceptional as is the set design, replete with elegant simplicity that flows past your eyes. You are drawn in so well you can taste the wine and feel the pool's water flowing around you. The actors, especially Rampling and the actress who plays Julie, are impeccable. The Swimming Pool is a totally wonderful experience. Dive in!

Trauma as Narrative in Swimming Pool

[moviewalk · 6/10 · 13 February 2005]

I do not agree with the majority that the filmmaker intended the protagonist's stay at the house to be a creative hallucination. I think that there are enough narrative details to work out the whole thing. My view is that the girl who appears at the house -- Julie -- is the publisher's daughter, and that the girl who appears at the end of the movie in the publisher's office -- Julia -- is the child that he had with Julie (and therefore his daughter/ granddaughter). In other words, the publisher raped his daughter Julie, and the child they had is Julia. I took the point of the final sequence to be the writer's noting the similarity between mother and child.

Julie displays classic symptoms of having been sexually abused as a child by her father. First, she is a nymphomaniac with a penchant for older men (she is repeating the traumatic event). Second, she experiences a complete fugue when she hysterically identifies the protagonist as her mother and fears that she had abandoned her (the way her real mother abandoned her and allowed her to be raped by her father.) Third, Julie makes numerous references to the sexually predatory nature of her father: "He's the king of the orgies"; "you're his latest conquest"; and her introducing one of her older lovers to Marcel as "her father." Fourth, the murder of the waiter is what she has wanted to do to her father (and to all men), and it occurs when she has cast the writer as her mother and therefore returned to the dynamics of her rape.

Further bits of narrative emerge when, at their dinner, Julie tells the writer that her first sexual experience was at 13. I think this experience was her rape by the publisher. It's not stated how old Julie is, but, assuming she's in her mid-twenties, the girl Julia at the end could certainly be her daughter if she had her at 13. I think that Marcel's daughter's stating nervously that Julie's mother's death was an "accident" suggests that, distraught over the publisher's rape of her daughter, she killed herself. The large stomach scar is the Cesarean section by which the incestuous child Julia was born.

The novel that the protagonist writes is the story of this incestuous rape. The detective writer has found her biggest mystery yet -- a family mystery, and her publisher is the villain. This is why he tries to undermine her confidence about the book and suggests that it shouldn't be published. If it were, then the story of his incestuous villainy would be known.

The way the protagonist smiles so warmly at Julia when she sees her at the office is meant to display her warmly realizing how she resembles her mother Julie in some ways (although much younger and not yet sexualized.) And the final scene of the waving is meant to further identify the mother with her child.

In this way, the movie employs the same family secret as "Chinatown."

How I understood the movie

[EighthSense · 10/10 · 17 October 2005]

The Sara Morton character is sick and tired of writing her stock-in-trade serial books, and wishes for inspiration for something NEW. She says so to her publisher, who wants to keep her writing them, and offers her a stay at his French villa for a rest and change of scenery.

Sara goes to the villa. We then see several scenes of just how much she enjoys the solitude, the sun, the quiet, the food. She breathes in deeply that fresh air, so different from the London cloudy skies, nameless crowds in the subways etc. that she came from. *** The sensuality of the landscape, the climate, even the pool, put her in a frame of mind different from the bored, fatigued frame of mind she had in London.*** (This is the key to the movie).

And, so, inspiration to write something a bit different does come: She starts writing another book, combining bits and pieces of given facts and given characters: The daughter that her publisher mentioned, appears in her manuscript as "Julie". All her attributes and behavior come from Sara's inspiration-"Julie" never actually comes to the villa. The rest is just how the book develops-and since she is an experienced writer of murder mysteries, a murder is written in too. She finishes the book, gets it published by a new publisher, takes it to her old publisher as an "I'll show you!", and this is where we see that she has never really met the daughter: A young girl with braces walks in, not recognizing Sara. That is the real-life daughter.

One scene that is quite telling of where reality stops and her inspiration starts is that of Franck-the local waiter, cleaning leaves from the pool with the net, wearing a tiny bathing suit, before he stands over the sunbathing, sleeping "Julie". The camera goes slowly over his body and his obvious arousal, in close-up-not the way he could be seen from where Sara was standing, looking out at the pool. That is BEFORE he is shown arriving at the villa with "Julie".

Well, the waiter is initially shown briefly serving Sara a drink in the village, and that's all he does. He doesn't work at the villa cleaning the pool-that is old Marcel's job. There is no other explanation about Franck suddenly being at the villa cleaning the pool, other than "that's how Sara wove the local waiter into her book".

An Excellent Idea Wasted In a Very Disappointing Conclusion

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 11 June 2004]

In London, the successful and weird middle-age writer of police and mystery novels Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) is passing through a phase of lack of inspiration. Her publisher John Bosload (Charles Dance) invites her to spend some summertime days in his house in a small town in France, where there is inclusive a swimming pool. He also suggests her to make the experience of writing about a different theme. Sarah accepts the invitation and travels to the wonderful and lonely place. A few days later, she starts writing again, but her quiet rest is shaken with the unexpected arrival of Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), the sexy daughter of John. From that moment on, reality and dream blends in Sarah's world. I did not dislike this movie, but I believe it is indeed an excellent idea, wasted in a very disappointing conclusion. There are many unexplained subplots and the story is completely open to the most different interpretations, and of course I have mine. But without reading any information or clue from the writer and director François Ozon about his real intention, it is impossible to give a precise clarification. Europeans usually like this type of story, but in this situation, the film does not give necessary hints about the real intention of the plot, and the viewer can speculate only. Charlotte Rampling has a magnificent interpretation, Ludivine Sagnier has a very erotic performance, but to become an excellent film, many clarifications are missing. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): `Swimming Pool: À Beira da Piscina' (`Swimming Pool: On the Edge of the Swimming Pool')

Fact or Metafiction?

[JamesHitchcock · 4/10 · 7 September 2017]

Sarah Morton, a middle-aged English writer specialising in detective novels, goes to stay in a country villa in France owned by John Bosload, her publisher, in order to work on her new book. One day Sarah is surprised to find a young woman in the property and, assuming that she is a trespasser, asks her indignantly what she is doing in the house. The girl, Julie, explains that she is John's daughter, and that her father has given her permission to use the house. Sarah and Julie begin to live together in the house, but theirs turns out to be an uneasy relationship because of their very different lifestyles. Sarah is looking for peace and solitude to concentrate on her writing, but her life is constantly disrupted by the brash, noisy Julie who brings a succession of lovers back to the house.

At first the film seems to be developing into a comedy of manners (or perhaps a comedy of bad manners) based around the contrast between a stereotypically sexually and emotionally repressed English spinster and a stereotypically sexually uninhibited French girl. (Julie is half-English but has a French mother, one of John's former mistresses, and has lived all her life in France; she speaks English with a heavy accent). Sarah is disgusted and, at the same time, secretly fascinated by Julie's irregular sex-life. There is even a hint of a lesbian attraction towards the younger woman; it is notable that whenever Sarah is looking at Julie the camera seems to zoom in lovingly on Ludivine Sagnier's generally scantily-clad body.

And then, suddenly, the film takes a sinister turn and becomes not a comedy but a sort of mystery thriller. Franck, a waiter in a local café and one of Julie's many boyfriends, disappears, and Sarah suspects not only that he may have been killed but also that Julie may be responsible.

In his review of the film Roger Ebert stated that "François Ozon (the director and co-writer) understands as Hitchcock did the small steps by which a wrong decision grows in its wrongness into a terrifying paranoid nightmare". He was not the only critic to draw a comparison with Hitchcock, but I wonder if such critics actually saw the same film as I did. To begin with, it is normally random chance which plunges Hitchcock's heroes and heroines into a terrifying nightmare, without the need for any wrong decision on their part. (Think of Roger Thornhill in "North by North-West" or the married couples in the two versions of "The Man who Knew Too Much"). Ebert may have been thinking of Marion Crane in "Psycho", who does indeed find herself in a nightmare as a direct result of stealing from her employer, but she is not really typical of Hitchcock's characters. Secondly, in "Swimming Pool" the "nightmare" arrives suddenly out of the blue rather than by small steps. In a matter of minutes Julie goes straight from performing a sex act on Franck to battering him to death with a rock, without any motive ever being given. The only possible explanation is that Julie is mentally deranged, but even if one accepts this explanation one still has to explain why Sarah should help an insane murderer to dispose of the body and to cover up her crime.

The ending of the film has been described as "ambiguous". It has been suggested that Sarah has been alone at the villa all the time and that Julie, Franck and some of the other characters only exist in her imagination as characters in the novel she is working on. Now I am well aware that the idea of a work of fiction supposedly created by an author who is himself or herself a character in a larger work of fiction is a variety of what has become known as "metafiction" and is one of the games which authors sometimes play with their readers. This game, moreover, can be a very effective literary advice; something similar occurs in Ian McEwan's novel "Atonement", and I have great admiration both for that novel and for the film which Joe Wright made of it. The concept of "metafiction", however, does not serve to turn a bad plot into a good one, and the plot of "Swimming Pool", whether one regards it as having been created by the real Francois Ozon or the fictional Sarah Mason, is a pretty poor one with more holes than a colander. Moreover, when I was watching the film myself it never occurred to me that Ozon might be playing metafictional games; I assumed that we were supposed to take everything that happened at the villa at face value.

The titular swimming pool, which plays a part in the story, and the theme of two women trying to dispose of the body of one man, may have been intended by Ozon as a reference to Clouzot's "Les Diaboliques", but his film cannot bear comparison with that masterpiece of the French cinema. Nor, pace Mr Ebert, can it bear comparison with "Psycho" or Hitchcock's other classics. Even the Master's weaker movies ("Stage Fright", "Torn Curtain", etc.) were normally more coherent than this. In terms of quality about the only Hitchcock film I would compare it to would be something like "Jamaica Inn", but then I have always considered that to be Hitch's worst film. It would have got a lower mark but for a decent acting contribution from Charlotte Rampling. 4/10

François Ozon's Masterpiece .

[AnthonyMeg · 9/10 · 25 March 2017]

This movie is a real precious piece of art ,and the acting done by "Charlotte Rampling" deserves my thanks and appreciation and admiration too, i didn't think that it's going to amaze me with such twisted plot , this movie is in my ten most confusing ends movies , you will not be able to find an appropriate,logical interpretation for the story that easy , every explanation will refuted by another explanation from another viewer,therefor i think this film plot was accurately and purposely done to confound the viewer/mind-blow them so every one has to make interpretation that fits them .

I finally "got it" the next day

[guyzradio · 7/10 · 21 November 2020]

This is a spoiler, short and to the point. I watched "Swimming Pool" late-night, when I'm not at the top of my game figuring out movies with a twist. I did find note and troubling the appearance of the Brit "Julia" at the end of the movie vs French "Julie" who appeared throughout. It wasn't until I related the movie during breakfast the next morning that the most plausible explanation dawned on me: the movie told the tale of the book presented to Sarah's publisher. The last few seconds hint strongly at this explanation.

Good performances, mild drama

[dissident320 · 5/10 · 7 September 2017]

It has some interesting elements and Charlotte Rampling is excellent. The story has some meta-elements of her being a mystery author and getting caught up with some of her subject matter while on a writing getaway. It's primarily about her being a voyeur and using some of these observations in her novel.

It had a decent ending which made me want to give it a little bit higher of a rating. Overall it's well-made but unremarkable.

Clever movie that does not reveal itself until at least 15 or 20 minutes after it is over.

[TxMike · 7 December 2004]

Our neighbor Donna has a knack for buying offbeat DVDs, and 'Swimming Pool' is one of the more. She asked us to see it, and explain it to her. Charlotte Rampling plays the central character of Sarah Morton, a writer who seeks new inspiration at her publisher's vacation home in the south of France. All is well and quiet until Julie (pretty and nubile Ludivine Sagnier) shows up, claiming to be the daughter that Sarah's publisher failed to mention. Sarah and Julie are like fire and ice, oil and water, acid and caustic. Everything that Julie is, carefree, bold, and over sexed, Sarah isn't. Then, what we see developing is Sarah using Julie as the inspiration for her writing. Sarah begins to encourage Julie. And Julie provides much inspiration! This isn't a movie for those put off by nudity or the French habits of liberal sleeping around. But for those who like a clever and absorbing story, that will tingle your brain cells when it is over, having you asking "What exactly happened?" , then you will probably enjoy this one.

SPOILERS follow, quit reading if you have not seen 'Swimming Pool.' As the story progresses, Sarah gets less annoyed with Julie's bratty and loose behavior, and actually seems to be inspired to experiment a bit too. Things turn sinister when Julie is putting off the night time poolside advances of one of the men she brought home, and ends up murdering him. Instead of admonishing Julie, Sarah helps her dispose of the body. The next day, when the village-dwelling gardener shows up, threatening to discover the deed, Sarah offers misdirection by stripping and inviting the old gentleman to her room for sex. BIGGEST SPOILER -- when Sarah gets back to London, her publisher's offices, meets 'Julia', the young daughter who looks and acts nothing like 'Julie' of the movie. My best interpretation, which is also based on comments by writer/director Ozon, is the 'movie' in France was in the imagination of Sarah, starting when she opened her window at night, and which was actually the book she was writing. As the movie ends in London, Sarah shows her publisher John the manuscript for 'Swimming Pool', which he doesn't like. Then she gives him a copy of the published book, telling him he knew he wouldn't like it, because it was a parody of him, and had someone else publish it.

Update: Saw it again January 2011 and it is a great movie to re-watch.

Meritorious but tries to be something it is not

[penseur · 7/10 · 18 March 2005]

A successful crime fiction author, Sarah, is suffering from writer's block and needing solitude and a change of scene her publisher suggests she take a spring break in his holiday house in the Luberon part of France, which she does and it seems to be working. Then the publisher's sexpot daughter, Julie, shows up unexpectedly and Sarah finds her presence, let alone pertness and promiscuity, a major irritation. To this point it is all perfectly believable, but then things start to become a little strange and, from a script point of view, rather ad hoc. For example, no explanation is given for Sarah finding one of Julie's bikini bottoms in the garden and why it should result in Sarah rummaging through Julie's belongings. The murder seems clumsy and pointless (and would leave a lot more evidence at the scene than that shown) and the disposal of the body rather pedestrian (not that more inventive methods in real life have prevented detection). The ambiguity presented at the end is designed to make us ponder whether it all really happened or was just a real-time fantasy with the eponymously titled book the result, unfortunately it rather draws attention to the script's shortcomings instead. On the plus side, the casting is good, it is nicely filmed and edited, the location is very pleasant and those who like the poster shouldn't be disappointed.

A strange gem.

[jefferydhamstra · 7/10 · 24 March 2020]

This movie spends most of its time trying to make you decide if it's horribly boring or a brilliant slow burn. But it is undeniably entertaining.

Baffling

[triple8 · 6/10 · 24 April 2005]

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT:

I knew the whole story of Swimming Pool before I watched it as many people I know have seen it and told me about it. So I watched it knowing what the ending would be, the "twist" but not knowing how I would interpret it. And I was quite unsatisfied at the end.

Swimming Pool is one of the most frustrating movies I've ever seen. At first glance, it would seem like the kind of movie I'd love. It's visually beautiful, thought provoking, contains many twists and turns and great Oscar caliber performances. Yet I wasn't that into Swimming Pool, in fact I didn't really like it that much, though I concede it was very well done on many levels. There are a small handful of films that, while not very enjoyable to watch, ARE very well made pictures. This sort of falls into that category and I say sort of because of the ending.

Swimming Pool's ending, as has been discussed dozens of times on this board, is way out there. But rather then feel, at the end, that the movie was being clever, I felt a bit manipulated as well as let down. Many, actually most, people have said that Julie never existed, that the whole film was the enfolding of Sara's book. I am in agreement about that, although a small part of me has this other theory(which I haven't seen on this board except by a few people.) that Julie DID exist but that she was a ghost. There was something about when Sara asked her how she got the scar and she said a car accident. Then there was also the fact that she just seemed to float upwards in the swimming pool from out of nowhere. There are a few things that make me think that but the last scene of the Julie/Julia characters merging into each other while they wave at Sara kind of disputes that and lends credibility to the more popular thought, that this was Sara's book as it was being developed. (Another small part of me has another theory, actually it's a fear, that the writer HAD no ending in mind and figured why not just drive the audience crazy trying to figure it all out? But hopefully, I'm wrong on that one.)

Of coarse, there seem to be dozens of other theories floating about and that's my point. This movie is maddening. It will get in your thoughts and while that's supposedly a good thing, I beg to differ. It isn't thought provoking in a good way. It is thought provoking in a frustrating way. The way it ended, if indeed the most popular of the believed endings is truly accurate, is not that original and will leave many a viewer feeling cheated as I did. While I like twist endings, you want to have SOME idea about what you just watched and invested your time in. And if there IS a twist ending it should be one that has not been done before and one that makes the viewer glad they just spent all that time tuning in.

Many people I know LOVE Swimming Pool and were surprised that I didn't but I feel strongly that there were a few things off about it and not just the ending. It's been talked about as being highly sensual but I did not see any of that. It was also rather creepy and the pacing was very slow. And there's no payoff at the end.I didn't like the musical score, it got on my nerves after awhile. So those are my reasons for not liking this.

That being said, I'd never rate this under a 6 at least, because it WAS well made in several ways. The scenery was breathtaking, the premise clever and the performances by everyone particularly Rampling and Sagnier have to be seen to be believed. These two performances rank up there as two of the most amazing in movie history, and THAT'S what's mesmerizing about the film. And I will admit the film is mesmerizing. I didn't like it but I couldn't turn it off. There's gotta be a reason and much of it are the performances of these two women. They are beyond extraordinary.

In closing, Swimming Pool definitely is not for everybody particularly people who may have a difficult times with endings such as this (like me). I've seen a lot of complaints about the ending on this board, my feeling is we all liked Julie and wanted her to be real. The movie makers did to good a job making her a character we cared about. That's a plus for Swimming Pool but not for it's ending. My vote is 6. 5 out of 10.

Charlotte Rampling and Ludivine Sagnier stripped bare...

[dbdumonteil · 7/10 · 2 June 2006]

In the guide of films by Jean Tulard, one of the very valuable bibles for any French cine buff, Claude Bouniq-Mercier had qualified "Swimming Pool" as "an accomplished work which intrigues and fascinates". He should have been attributed these flattering words to François Ozon's previous work, "8 Femmes" (2002), arguably his very seminal piece of work and one of the top five movies of 2002. In this film, the filmmaker transcended the whodunit by incorporating to a plot à la Agatha Christie other cinematographic genres like drama, comedy and especially musicals. Ozon also had had fun by peppered his film with movie-loving details and there was a strong Chabrolesque aura to unearth dark secrets of this bourgeois milieu. And, so the expectations were high for Ozon's next movie. Ozon had the guts to produce another work one year after "8 Femmes": "Swimming Pool". Did Ozon depicted himself in the character of Sarah Morton? Was he afraid not being able to renew himself and to be marooned to write another movie? Did he write and direct his 2003 film to eschew at all costs a block which could have been fatal? Anything goes but he seems to have overcome his fears and cropped a film up with several possible understandings and which isn't here to make the viewer lazy in spite of its little holiday feel because of the landscapes. At first sight, "Swimming Pool" is a film difficult to define and label. It could be a cross between a psychological drama, thriller with a dash of fantastic.

"Swimming Pool" seems to be located in the continuity of Ozon's precedent worked and adds to the cohesion of his early work. The director showcases some of his trademarks which contributed in asserting his own style. Thus, there's an evident taste for derision like in the sequence when Sarah, Julie and Franck dance to the sound of a tech no music. It's reminiscent of a similar sequence in "Gouttes D'Eaux Sur Pierre Brûlantes" (2000) in which the quartet of this film danced on a German dance song. Shocking is also well present. Like in his other films, Ozon likes to put his characters in an isolated, closed space to unearth what's going on in their tormented minds and seems to prefer to film women than men. Here, two women. On the one hand, Sarah, a successful, uptight, frustrated English writer with a bias for alcohol. On the another hand Julie, a brazen bimbo girl who leads a carefree life and collects masculine conquests. The perfect mismatched pair until Sarah begins to show a vivid interest in her partner and the two women start to come together. Sarah seems to envy her partner even if she doesn't declare it straight to her and perceives Julie as an object for her fantasy. The famous swimming pool is the strong contender for Sarah's fantasy to fully express herself. When she arrives in the villa, she's reluctant to dive in it. It's after she better made the acquaintance of Julie that she feels strong enough to act. Especially, Julie will be her source of inspiration to write her new and supposedly drastically different novel. In another extent, Ozon's directing virtually evolutes on the razor's edge, efficiently enough to install a disquieting tension which doesn't really fade away after Sarah is in good terms with Julie. It reaches a climax in the murder sequence and when the writer wants to learn more about Julie's past which seems to be murky, things take an eerie turn. Julie seems to be John's offspring from a first relationship, her mother died in mysterious circumstances and seemed to have suffered of this. Check the sequence in which she hysterically screams "Mum! Mum!". So, like in "8 Femmes", Ozon unmasks her two main actresses and things could have stopped there but the director preferred to go beyond with an unexpected twist which destabilizes the viewer.

At the end of the film, there is an unexpected twist which gives the inkling that illusion reigned throughout the film and Ozon may have played a trick on the viewer. His or her certainties about what he or she watched are subverted and the first reflex would be to separate what may come from Sarah's imagination and what would be real. In the second case, the sequences when she's in front of her laptop could be strong contenders and the most important part of the film would consist of Sarah's novel unfolding before our eyes as soon as she arrives at the villa. But other points may leave the viewer baffled because they are hard to put in one of the two categories mentioned above. After Julie's arrival, Sarah desperately tries to get through John and she doesn't manage to do it. Is he ashamed of Julie? Does he refuse to deliver information about her to Sarah? Ozon said once that he didn't really like to write the scenario of his films and preferred to let the viewer decide what he wanted about the contents of his works. So, up to the viewer to make his brain work about the mystery which shrouds the whole film and its unclear aspects. To quote Bergman: "questions are more important than the answers". I think that beyond an unlikely relationship between two different women, Ozon showed us the act of creation for an artist in general.

So, Mr Bouniq-Mercier, I partly agree with your opinion but I have little doubts about its first part. But it's nevertheless a work which will haunt you for a long time after you've seen it and will probably make your brain work when you think about it. Try to watch several times in a row and if thinking too much causes you headaches, why not watching Ozon's following works which are easier to follow?: "5x2" (2004) and especially "Le Temps Qui Reste" (2005). I relish more on the second work which is perhaps Ozon's best film since "8 Femmes".

What's real and what's fiction

[jotix100 · 8/10 · 26 July 2003]

This film owes a great deal of gratitude to the second collaboration between Francois Ozon and his leading lady, Charlotte Rampling. They ought to team up more.

As with the previous film, Under the Sand, this is an enigmatic piece of cinema. This film, I believe, has more to do with Sarah Morton's imagination than with the actual story presented to us. There are so many hidden clues within the story that everyone will have a different take in what is presented in the film and what the actual reality is.

Francois Ozon is not a boring director. He will always present an interesting story, fully developed, with many twists to get his viewer into going in different directions trying to interpret it all.

Charlotte Rampling is magnificent as Sarah Morton, the repressed author of mystery novels. Ludivine Sagnier is very good as the mysterious Julie, the alleged daughter of Sarah's publisher, but now, is she really that person?

The ending will baffle the viewer. This is a film that will stay and haunt one's mind for days.

Smart but boring

[GoD-s-LoNeLy-MaN · 6/10 · 18 October 2006]

The famous British mystery author Sarah Mortan seeks inspiration at her publisher's vacation house in France. The quiet is gone once a person (Julie) who claims to be the publisher's daughter arrives. The two are complete opposite and don't get along very well but then Sarah realizes that Julie is good inspiration for the book she wants to write. Julie is a party girl whose sex life consists of one-night stands with middle-aged men. Sarah after a while is not bothered anymore by Julie's behavior and also "loosens up". The competition of personalities which had always been between the two women becomes sexual when a local waiter is involved. After a night of flirting between these three, in which Julie is ousted by Sarah, Julie murders the waiter and Sarah suddenly becomes the young girl's only friend and protector and she helps her dispose the body. As the gardener is about to discover the dead body, Sarah distracts him by taking off her clothes. The two have sex. (quite bizarre). Back in London, Sarah meets Julia, the only daughter of her publisher. Julia is very different from Julie and the two seem to have met before.

There is one shot that implies that Julie only exists in Sarah's imagination and almost none of the events in the movie actually happened. The events described are the subject of Sarah's next book. The movie misleads the audience and plays with it. The ending is quite smart and interesting, however, the first hour or so is so boring that you don't really care about the ending and might even miss the twist because you don't pay close attention anymore or are already asleep. Plus it is not really relevant if it actually happened or not. Saying: "But none of it actually happened, she made it all up" does not compensate for the lack of suspense. It's not that great of an idea.

Slow erotic thriller/drama that did not live up to what it could have been.

*** 6.0/10 **

an old joke well shot

[ezequiel2517 · 5/10 · 24 May 2003]

I think there are two sides in Ozon's filmography; one is more related with theater and a sort of theatrical fantasy, in huis clos fictions, it is the side of "Huit Femmes" and "Gouttes d'eau sur Pierres brûlantes", and the other side is more realistic and intimate, like in "Sous le sable". The first one is embodied by Ludivine Saignier whereas the other is embodied by Charlotte Rampling. And I believe that here, in "Swimming Pool", he tries to combine these two sides of his career, joining these two actresses and creating a fiction between realism and dreams, in a sort of fantastic huis clos around a country house with a swimming pool.

But I think it is a failure. The dialogues are artificial and often sound false, maybe because they are in English written by a Frenchman, and some second characters' acting is really bad. The story is not original at all and plays with a joke that is becoming a cliché: the invented movie, just like "Adaptation", for instance. This joke may justify the bad dialogues and acting because you can say that the writer is inventing a bad fiction, but anyway I don't find this satisfactory. Besides, Ozon lacks completely of subtlety and destroys very heavily any kind of ambiguity regarding interpretation, with a cheap remembering flashback in the end, he explains the whole movie which was pretty clear after you think of it for a while. He makes all the work that should be done by the viewer, destroys his active work of interpreting the movie and does it in a way that lacks of elegance. In short, he builds a movie around a cliché that he doesn't even transform, and destroys what is interesting about it, the interpretation on the viewer side and the ambiguity. If the movie worths to be seen, it is because it has some beautiful shots, not to many, but it creates some great moving images. To conclude, it is really a mediocre movie with a quite bad story but technically very well done. "Swimming pool" is just technique without poetry.

Fun with the process of creation ...

[chinwag · 9/10 · 26 September 2005]

... Ozon lets us see his characters directly; and then through the mind of Charlotte Rampling's (as author) character. Two strands apply - the direct-to-Ozon's mind, and the indirect, via Rampling. And there the fun begins. We glimpse a gawky, immature, teeth-in-bands teenager (blonde) towards the end of the movie - Morton (the publisher's) daughter. But who has this blonde (Ludivine Sagnier) - who has she been? And how did she get to be in the house/novel/movie at all? Well now, let me see ... we learn at the beginning that Morton's daughter might well drop-in on the writer - as she is only borrowing Morton's house in the Luberon area of Provence. We 'accept' an idea of the incumbent blonde in all probability as that spoken of daughter. But she seems like a 15-year-old going on 35!!! She has an amazing amount of baggage for such a seemingly young girl. And she gets into such torrid, bizarre, and ghastly gargantuan fixes - all seem too improbable. The mix-and-match mode - as strand crosses strand, weaving a rich texture of reality versus illusion, fiction versus fact, and dream versus daylight - the enjoyment being in the management (in each viewer's mind) of the strands, understanding when the author's fiction is being played-out across the screen; and when we are back again inside the movie-director's mind (as opposed to one of his character's i.e the novelist). The local people encountered in the Luberon quickly become assimilated into Rampling's novel - their more outmodish acts being inventions of the novelist's mind (but being re-played inside an Ozon movie). And characters we might think are kith and kin of the 'real' people we encounter, are in fact nothing but kin to the fine imaginings of the typing hand. Ludivine Sagnier being the case in point - and she a cruel joke against Morton's dismissive inattentions towards our writerly heroine. The gawky, tooth-banded teenager has, in all likelihood, been in Provence all along - and in the projection of the novelist's mind - fashioned into a femme-fatale that makes the LuDIVINE we see on our screens, (and as the central protagonist of the Rampling novel, were it at hand to be read)!

Checkmate.

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 13 November 2004]

SPOILERS.

I'm stumped. I can't figure out what happened. The Frogs have done it again and confounded me.

"Spoilers" appears at the top of this comment only because it's pro forma by now. (This is a recent movie.) But I can describe only what appears on screen. I couldn't possibly tell you how the plot is resolved because I don't know.

Basically, the story is simple enough, as we see it running along. "Crabbed age and youth cannot live together," said Shakespeare. I don't know if that's entirely true, but I guess if I were a British writer of mystery novels taking a working vacation in the south of France and this young babe -- zesty and bitter -- moved in and started carrying on with her boyfriends and her dope and her loud music while I was trying to work on another novel, the situation could become trying.

The writer is Charlotte Rampling. She has been having a long affair with her publisher and complains to him that she feels neglected by him and that she's bored with those damme Dorwell mysteries. Why not get away for a spell, he suggests. She can use his vacation house near the Riviera, peaceful and quiet in its off-season solitude, and she can take a deep breath. So she goes. And she LOVES the place except for its swimming pool.

She's always hated swimming pools. There's no reason she shouldn't enjoy herself. There's a cute café nearby and an appealing waiter -- not one of those rude, catty types of Parisian waiters but a laid-back Provençal type.

She begins her new novel, something entirely different from the Dorwell mysteries. But then the publisher's estranged daughter shows up and turns things upside down. The nocturnal noises annoy Rampling. And she finds that the crucifix over the bed -- which she had taken down first thing upon entering the house and hidden in a drawer -- has been restored to its rightful place over the headboard. Is THAT what this is about? Something to do with uptight Spartan Calvinists versus life-embracing southern Catholics? I can't see how that would work in light of what's to come.

"To make a long story short," as Shakespeare said, Rampling's irritation with this adolescent changes into jealousy as the naked teenager runs around cavorting with a succession of men until finally she takes up with the friendly waiter, to whom Rampling herself is attracted. At the same time, Rampling is becoming fascinated in a horrified way and begins probing for the teen's secret. Upshot -- jealousy breeds murder. The nymphet bashes in the waiter's head with a rock. Rampling discovers this and excitedly, almost cheerfully, helps the young girl bury the body in the backyard. Rampling even seduces a withered and extremely old gardener, a man who looks the way I feel when I get out of bed, who is about to discover the burial. (This is a nude scene and only goes to prove that the years haven't been unkind to Rampling.)

Okay, okay. Rampling returns to London, and flings a newly published novel on her boyfriend's desk and walks out. As she leaves she passes a young blonde who runs to the publisher, hugs him, and cries, "Daddy!", while he kisses her forehead. Rampling watches this scene, smiling, and leaves. My guess is that everything that has happened since the entry of that French teenager is the plot of the new novel she's just written. But honestly I think I'm mated.

What's all the fuss about?

[dlmiley · 3/10 · 28 August 2003]

I truly don't understand the acclaim this movie is receiving. Usually to get critical acclaim a movie has to be in French, in Black and White and BORING. I guess having some French and being both boring and ANNOYING did it for them. I was initially intrigued by the plot and Charolette Rampling's portrayal of an author's quiet desperation. Then I was titillated by Ludivine Sagnier's beauty. But ultimately I was angered by the careless plotting--as one reviewer put it, you know a plot is in trouble when a DWARF appears for no apparent reason! But the condescending ending made me want to scream at the screen saying "you wasted my time for THIS?". I'd recommend you wait for this movie to appear on cable and watch it only for Ludivine Sagnier's stunning beauty (Charolette Rampling also doesn't look too bad for 58 years old, either). My rating: 3/10.