Swimming Pool (2003)

• Review: *** ½ (out of ****)
• Starring: Charlotte Rampling, Ludivine Sagnier, Charles Dance, Marc Fayolle, Jean-Marie Lamour
• Director: François Ozon
• Screenplay: François Ozon, Emmanuèle Bernheim
• Length: 102 min.
• MPAA Rating: R (For strong sexual content, nudity, language, some violence and drug use)

A mystery writer finds herself embroiled in a real life mystery of her own when she decides to go on vacation to clear her head.

Charlotte Rampling starsas Sarah Morton, the British author of a popular detective novelseries, who's come to the end of her wits. Her fame prevents her fromescaping the undaunted fans who seemingly find her everywhere. A womanon the subway identifies her immediately and when she confronts Sarah,she simply states "I think you've mistaken me for someone else" andflees by the nearest route. Morton approaches her publisher JohnBosload (Charles Dance) with her intense frustration and in his wisdomhe invites her to take a sabbatical to his home in France where a largeSwimming Pool forms the basis for her latest novel.

She arrives andimmediately begins to collate her ideas into a new novel. The peace ischallenged when Bosload's sultry daughter Julie (Ludivine Sagnier)arrives unannounced. The tension is palpable as the rigid Sarah becomesinfatuated with the free-spirited Julie. Sarah's intense curiosityleads her on a road to her own self discovery where she must free hermind and explore the strange and unusual, even going so far as to trysmoking pot for the first time. Meanwhile, Julie returns the interestand together, they form an unlikely pair.

Rampling is simplymarvelous as the archetypal British literary sophisticate. She conjuresup the images of a strung-out Jessica Fletcher and a more refined MissMarple. The audience watches Rampling skillfully take her characterfrom a depressive, passionless spinster to a vibrant, youthful rebel. By her side is the brilliant Sagnier whose sensuous malcontent isfilled with life-affirming enthusiasm. We watch her as she seduces oneunattractive man after another.

Sarah plies Julie forinformation about her mother and father, hoping to find some amazinglink that will explain all of her suspicions. She wants desperately tofinish her book and through the inspiration of this rebelliousyoungster, she breaks her creative block and writes a novel that issure to be a best seller.

Director François Ozonnever gives the audience the answer, wanting instead for them to guessthe solution. Ozon has a certain passion for the unusual. 8 Women wasfar from traditional and with the intriguing self-reflective nature ofthe Swimming Pool screenplay (co-written by Ozon with EmmanuèleBernheim), we find ourselves involved in an absorbing mystery. Unlikeother stories of the genre, this one doesn't end with a detectivetidily revealing the solution. It instead ends with a question thatforces the audience to think back over the events of the film andresolve for themselves what the real mystery was and whether what wesee with our eyes is truly the same as what we can see with our minds.

Swimming Pool won'tappeal to many audiences. It doesn't wrap itself in a nice bow at theend like many other popular movies. Instead, the film will be embracedby an intellectual community who delights in such mental exercises andwill likely develop a small cult following in the ranks of thecineastes. Like its title character, the film takes us on a vacationfrom the generic and we can leave the theater with a revitalized faithin the art of filmmaking.

-Wesley Lovell (December 8, 2003)