| SWIMMING POOL |
 2003 - France / UKDirector: François Ozon -Reviewed by Linda
Charlotte Rampling, who at 58 is exceptionally sexy in that frosty-Englishwoman sort of way, plays successful mystery writer Sarah Morton. When she has writer's block, her publisher John suggests that she take a holiday from dreary England, and go stay at his French countryside villa. Expecting solitude and inspiration, she instead is interrupted by the arrival of John's nymphet teenage daughter Julie (Sagnier). Julie (now, everyone repeat with their best French accent: "Zzzhhoooolie") is a tarty little wench, picking up different men every night, which first annoys, then intrigues Sarah. Julie wanders around the house topless (breasts!) and sunbathes all oiled-up by the villa's swimming pool. Sarah watches, and finds that she may have inspiration after all. The first two-thirds of Swimming Pool is a languid study in sexuality, imagination, and power plays between two women. Though it has a deliberately slow pace, I found that I quite enjoyed this part of the film, enough to recommend it. Rampling is fabulous to watch, and seems to have hit her stride as an actress. As Sagnier tosses her tangle of long blonde hair, and attempts to seduce the man that is interested in Sarah, you can't help but notice that Rampling exudes much more overt sensuality than this prancing young thing. But just when you are enjoying this interesting character study, Ozon throws in a plot twist about 2/3rds through that seems almost perfunctory, given the main character's occupation (I'll just let you guess what happens). At this point, Swimming Pool becomes merely typical. Unfortunately, by the time that the final scenes present an "a-HA!" revelation, I found that, alas, I didn't really care anymore. |
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I can't quite decide if Ludivine Sagnier is a half-decent actress or simply godawful. Is her heavily accented monotone English a result of reading a script flatly with no skill or emotion, or does it hint at something deeper and more profound that the language barrier supresses? One thing that I think everyone can agree upon is that she has exceptionally nice breasts. And director François Ozon seems to know this as well, as her breasts feature as predominantly in Swimming Pool as her, well, rather annoying personality.