Swimming Pool Review
by Jonathan F. Richards (moviecritic AT prodigy DOT net)July 22nd, 2003
IN THE DARK/Jonathan Richards
SWIMMING POOL
Directed by Francois Ozon
Rated R, 102 minutes
"Swimming Pool" has eroticism and suspense. It just doesn't have either of them in the measures it aspires to.
The director is Francois Ozon, who made the somewhat more successful "Under the Sand" couple of years ago. That one was about a woman (Charlotte Rampling) who, when her husband dies, can't bring herself to accept the fact, living instead in a state of denial and fantasy. In "Swimming Pool" Ozon has brought Rampling back, and again they deal with a story of a woman whose fantasy world may be more compelling than the unsatisfying here and now.
"You must have mistaken me for someone else," says author Sarah Morton (Rampling) to a gushing fan who accosts her with a copy of her latest book on London's Underground. "I'm not the person you think I am." In this opening moment several things are established: Sarah is successful enough to be recognized, and used enough to it to be curt and evasive instead of thrilled; Sarah is not a particularly warm person; and Sarah is not the person we think she is. But then, neither is anybody else.
Sarah is of that inexhaustible ilk, the British woman mystery writer. The pantheon is emblazoned with memorable names, from Agatha Christie and Joesphine Tey to Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell. Sarah is right up there with them in terms of success, although later evidence suggests she isn't really a very good writer. She's the meal ticket for her publisher, John Bosload (Charles Dance). And when Sarah grumps around his office complaining that she can't get inspired, he offers up his villa in the south of France, a perk not generally available to mid-list authors. Sarah makes it clear that she is hoping for something more from Bosload than just the keys, and he promises unconvincingly to try to join her for a weekend.
Once ensconced in the villa, Sarah loosens up a little. Ozon takes his time establishing what a slow-paced little village it is. Some might say he overdoes it. The movie creeps along in a mosaic of inconsequence, as Sarah unpacks, walks, shops, drinks tea, plugs in her laptop, and gradually begins work on a new novel, entitled Dorwell on Holiday. (Dorwell is her police inspector; her previous book, set in Scotland, was titled Dorwell Wears a Kilt.)
Things pick up with the unexpected arrival of Julie (Ludivine Sagnier, of Ozon's "Eight Women"). Julie is Bosload's French daughter, and much to Sarah's annoyance she moves in, plays loud music, and swims and sunbathes nude at the leaf-strewn swimming pool beneath Sarah's window. Sarah is frosty when Julie suggests a swim. "I don't like swimming pools," she says, and the girl nods knowingly. "Pools are boring," she agrees. "There's no sense of danger...." Which is not to say that there won't be.
Julie further irritates her unwilling housemate by bringing home a different man every night for loud and enthusiastic sex. A certain hostility grows between the two women, put into play by Sarah but readily enough accepted by Julie.
But after a while, Sarah begins to recognize Julie's good qualities. Those good qualities, from Sarah's perspective, are that she could provide excellent material for a novel. (From an audience perspective, several of her good qualities have been apparent from the first time we saw her in the pool.) Sarah warms up to her, and they become friends. And then Julie discovers that the older woman is just using her, and it upsets her.
As the plot thickens, a succession of events ensues that feels increasingly off-kilter. One night Julie brings home Frank (Jean-Marie Lamour), the ruggedly handsome waiter from the local restaurant with whom Sarah has been exchanging glances (he even directed her to the crumbling nearby castle of the Marquis de Sade.) Julie and Frank persuade Sarah to join them for a drink, and then for a bit of dancing, and then the evening turns a little sour and Sarah retires. But the night goes on.
There are a lot of almost-good-enoughs in this movie, sufficient to hold the attention without ever approaching the level of a Hitchcock or a Chabrol. But the two women rise above the shaky plotting, with sharply delineated performances. Sagnier is a worthy inheritor of the French sex kitten tradition, and a smart actress as well. When she says sullenly "Nobody better mess with me, because if they do I'll mess with them back," she puts enough conviction in it to plant seeds of foreboding in our hearts. And Rampling, who played a sex kitten or two in her younger days ("The Damned", "The Night Porter"), here shows a revealing range of character, from the bitchy, uptight spinster to the conniving, manipulative author, and in one surprising scene shows just how far she's willing to go to protect a source.
The action gets more unlikely as it reaches for the denouement, but a twist is waiting for us at the end that will explain a lot of it. Whether or not it explains it all to your satisfaction is another matter. There is much to discuss that can't be discussed in a review, for reasons of plot security.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
