The Year 2003: Swimming Pool (Francois Ozon)

After the camp musings of his 2002 hit 8 Women, Ozon's next project, the one time brat of French Cinema, proved to be his most accessible yet to mainstream audiences and earned the director his first real hit in the U.S. Starring Charlotte Rampling, in a role that won her an award for best actress from the European Film Academy, as a conservative, repressed, mystery writer suffering from writers block, Swimming Pool, although beautifully crafted, fails to match up to some of the director's richer work. Once again we are joined by Tom Hyland of Cinema Directives, his great blog dedicated to meaningful cinema from the perspective of an avid film devotee, takes on a 'rather unsatisfactory' film that you can't help fell a bit cheated' by.

Near the end of Swimming Pool, fiction crime writer Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) goes to see her publisher with her latest manuscript. After reading it, he asks her, “Where’s the action? Where are the plot twists?” Unfortunately, I was contemplating the same questions much earlier in this film.

Pool tries to be several things – a psychological thriller, a study in two wildly diverse females, a sex-tinged mystery – but it doesn’t do a very good job in any of those areas. Given all its faults, it’s still a watchable film, thanks to Rampling’s icy performance and the structure of the screenplay which withholds enough information to keep us interested until the end, but overall, it is rather unsatisfactory.

The flimsy storyline has Morton, a successful author in her 50s, going through writer’s block, as she is trying to come up with her latest novel, part of a detective series which has won her critical acclaim and excellent sales. Her publisher suggests that she use his country home in France, as a chance to get away from the city and hopefully to a world that will provide inspiration.


She loves the solitude of her new surroundings and begins to write, but then meets the publisher’s young sex-crazed daughter Julie (Ludivine Sagnier). Julie smokes, drinks and has various boyfriends over most nights; her uninhibited behavior a sharp contrast to the restrained writer.

That’s really about it, as far as plot goes. Julie prances around topless for much of the movie and in one scene, performs oral sex on a boyfriend. Great if you’re looking for this sort of thing, but it’s only there as a minimal plot device (i.e. Morton can’t sleep while all this is going on); the primary reason of course, is voyeuristic.

So Morton, frustrated at not being able to write her detective novel, switches modes and decides to write a fictional book with Julie as the main character. That’s the work she turns into her publisher at the end. After she leaves his office, a surprise ending is revealed and as someone watching the film, you can’t help but feel a bit cheated. Apparently, we’re supposed to believe that Morton completely made up this sexpot girl, if only to help her loosen up inside on the way to finding herself, which in turn will help her write a better, more wildly oriented novel, far different from what she’s done in the past. The trouble is it I don’t buy it and even if you do, it’s such a silly plot device that you’ll be a little upset with the filmmakers for making you sit and watch all this.


As I mentioned, Rampling is as aloof as ever and she delivers a fine performance. She even has to appear nude in one scene, and it’s a slightly clumsy moment, so credit to her for taking on this role. As Julie, Sagnier has a freshness about her that works for the most part, though her acting abilities take her only so far (she was cast for her body, no doubt). The men in the story are two-dimensional at best and that’s giving screenwriters Emmanuèle Bernheim and director François Ozon the benefit of the doubt.

Ozon directed this film with a leisurely pace; some sequences shot in the country or at the house on summer days are very pretty and have a relaxed feel that is in contrast to the tensions between the two female characters. But that’s not enough to recommend this film. Dare I say that Swimming Pool is all wet?