Swimming Pool
…is clearly the biggest gem of this film. Surprisingly, I found myself liking her character very much, whereas I was thoroughly annoyed by Charlotte Rampling’s. They had quite a good chemistry together, and perhaps that was what actually made the film work for me.
Apart from that, I think there are at least 4 people I know who have seen the film… and for everybody, I think sex was the only thing the film seemed to be about. This proved to be fairly true except the bold characterization of Julie didn’t actually shock me. Considering that this is a “normal movie” after all, it didn’t show anything explicit. In comparison to that, I was much more shocked by “In All Innocence” back then when I saw it on French TV. Perhaps this is because Sagnier’s character isn’t evil nor dangerous, she plays around without doing much (except for the dead guy, harr harr). In fact she’s too good for any of them, including the guy who ended up dying. I love how this weird friendship blossomed between the characters, with Julie saying “I think I killed him. For you, for the book.”
So what can I say, in the end this was an enjoyable, simple movie featuring quite a lot of scenes with romantic, rural France and Ludivine Sagnier’s naked body – and that’s it. I probably would not have seen the film if I hadn’t gotten it from a friend and if it hadn’t appeared in conversations so surprisingly often. I definitely would say that I liked the film except for the lousily directed ending, and I admit that it’s more a film of guilty pleasure than anything else.