Swimming Pool (2003)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Essentially this is a French film: it was written and directed by a Frenchman François Ozon and it was shot by a French crew almost entirely on location in the south of France. But the lead actress is British and half of the dialogue is in English. Charlotte Rampling plays Sarah Morton (actually the name of Rampling's sister who killed herself at the age of 23), an English crime novelist who wants to craft something different. She is offered the use of her publisher's home in rural France where unexpectedly she comes across his daughter Julie played by Ludivine Sagnier. The two women are utterly different and the film - a slow-burning thriller - explores the developing relationship between them and its mysterious consequences with an ending that is highly ambiguous. We think of French films as often involving nudity and there is plenty on show here. Both actresses are beautiful and sexy although, at the time the film was made (2003), Rampling was in her late 50s and Sagnier in her early 20s.

Released in 2003, "Swimming Pool" is a drama/psychological thriller about a popular English novelist named, Sarah (Charlotte Rampling), who vacations at her publisher's villa in France to find inspiration for her next book. Unfortunately, the publisher's oversexed daughter, Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), visits and disrupts her activities.If you remember 70s' films like "Orca" and "Zardoz" you'll know that Rampling was stunning in her physical prime in a looks-that-kill way. In "Swimming Pool" she's still in decent shape for a woman verging on 60, but her character's a joyless biyatch desperately seeking inspiration. Julie, by contrast, is young, friendly and overflowing with sexuality, but – like Sarah – she's not a pushover in the least.Sagnier shines as the wild child French hottie. There's just something about the female French accent that's a turn-on. Despite her sexiness, it's clear in some scenes that Julie's actually sort of plain in a girl-next-door kind of way. It's what she does with what she's got that makes her stunning.Like 2005's "Match Point," "Swimming Pool" is the antithesis of the modern 'blockbuster' and all its moronic trappings -- there's no quick editing, no CGI, no goofy one-liners, no explosions and no promise of $400 million at the box office. No, "Swimming Pool" is movie-making based simply on excellent writing and cinematic storytelling. The end is a revelation to the viewer even if you were expecting it, particularly because, if you research it, it's way more than even that, believe it or not. It's amazing how good writing & storytelling can create a 'Wow' reaction more so than the most elaborate overkill action sequence with all its requisite CGI and explosions.The film runs 102 minutes and was shot in Luberon, Vaucluse, France, and London.GRADE: A- ***SPOILER ALERT*** (Don't read further if you haven't seen the film) The obvious interpretation is that Julie isn't real, but rather a character created by Sarah for her next book whereas Julia is the publisher's real daughter, revealed at the end. People who draw this conclusion, like me on my first two viewings, are on the right track, but this interpretation is only accurate to a point. For details see the thread on the IMDb message board "The Definitive Answer / Color-Key to Swimming Pool."

Couldn't really understand this film; bought the DVD for one reason, and one reason only, a good friend of mine, Keith Yeates, played the part of Charlotte Rampling's father. Keith had lots of bit parts on TV and in movies over a period of about 15 years, including Longtitude (2000), with Michael Gambon, The Four Feathers (2002). Swimming Pool was the first of his work to get him a mention on IMDb, sadly he died of heart failure before I had the opportunity to tell him. Keith liked people to know that he attended the Oxford High School for Boys with British comedy legend Ronnie Barker. He was a popular guy, and still missed.

The plot in a giant SPOILER: A female London-based mystery novel writer spending a summer at her publisher's villa in France helps a young woman (Julie) claiming to be the publisher's daughter get rid of evidence of her murder of a local young man interested in both ladies. The writer ends up writing a book based on this girl and a book by her mother based on her romantic relationship with the publisher, and publishes it behind his back. The final sequence reveals another similarly named girl (Julia) to be the daughter of said publisher. The writer waves at both girls in the final scene, and the silhouette she waves at mimics her. Further SPOILERS: The first girl is topless through a lot of the movie, and BIG SPOILER: the older writer also goes Full Monty for one scene. No one else that matters gets naked.I immediately looked up interpretations of the film because it does not hold your hand in its conclusion. Julie's existence, her relationship with Julia, with the publisher, and with the writer all come into question. One character (if we accept he existed) grounds Julie in reality, it's the gardener Marcel. He has a dwarf daughter whom at the mention of her mother shuts herself in terrified, insisting she died in an accident. When he stumbles upon the freshly dug grave of Julie's latest victim, it is as if he had already seen this before. The writer looks at Julie for help, but since she's asleep, offers herself to the gardener instead. Julie is playful with Marcel, and in one scene stops him from working and pulls him in the bushes with her newly met sex partner. Julie might have had to gain the gardener' silence previously. Maybe she killed his wife. The hysteric way in which Julie pleads her mother not to leave her and her agony when she realizes she's talking to the author and her mother already isn't there could suggest she's reliving the past trauma of having been abandoned by her mother after a similar incident. Since the writer wouldn't have been there before, the gardener might have been Julie's former accomplice. Work at the villa might be compensation, it explains why neither parent wants to go back there or see Julie. Julia is younger than Julie, and could be the official family the publisher approves of. She has braces. Julie absolutely does not wear bras. She is too free, the unwanted child of a sex orgy. The book the writer publishes behind the publisher's back is an "illegitimate" product itself. It is more personal and vindictive. Etymologically, I don't know how much the director likes to play with names, but Julie's mother fled to somewhere Nice, her relationship with her father is Long done, and at the end she herself drives off to St Tropez, or Saint too much. When I first saw the writer seeing Julia for the first time, I thought Julie had duped her. The final scene might suggest the two are the same, but Julia does not seem to recognize the writer at all when they meet in London. Perhaps the writer is projecting one onto the other, but Julia is in London and wouldn't come without her father, Julie is gone to St Trop. The shadow she waves at happens to mimic the writer's wave, suggesting both are her puppets, imagination, or own projection. The movie ends leaving the silhouette anonymous. It also puts the writer back in France. Maybe the publisher gave her the villa as compensation. She did warn him her detective series would be coming back, a not so subtle blackmail after delivering him a book digging up old bones literally in his backyard. The best way to shut her up would be to give her a reason to keep people off the property he doesn't want to go back to himself. As soon as I finish writing this I'm sure I will come up with another interpretation, and I've already spent more than the movie's running time on this. This is perhaps the beauty of the Swimming Pool.