TdSmth5 Sarah is a British author of mystery/crime novels. She's also a miserable despicable woman who isn't satisfied until everyone around her is miserable too. Her editor is expecting a new work of hers so he sends her to his vacation house in France to get inspiration. He lets her know that his daughter may stop by.In France Sarah sort of regains her humanity. She meets the older care-taker of the place, a server at a cafe/restaurant she goes to every day. Eventually the editor's daughter does show up. Julie is young, wild, free-spirited, brings different men home and has loud sex with them to the annoyance of Sarah who claims to need peace and quiet to write. That causes strife between the two. Julie lives life to the fullest, swims, sunbathes, eats good food. Sarah eats every day the same junk, thinks too highly of herself to swim. Sarah goes through Julie's stuff, reads her diary, finds some things that interest her, and now is more open to her. They start getting along. It turns out that Julie is the inspiration Sarah needs not just for her writing but for life. Julie discovers that Sarah went through her stuff, so she goes through her stuff. Now things take a turn for the worse as they are both suspicious of each other.One night Julie brings the server home and gets Sarah to dance with him. Later though Sarah out of spite interrupts a sex act between Julie and the guy, things get a bit nonsensical. Next day Sarah discovers that the server and/or Julie have vanished. A crime has taken place and Sarah, the expert in crimes helps to cover it up. Sarah becomes interested in knowing more about who Julie is and at the end she and we make a surprising discovery.While I do appreciate movies about writing and inspiration, Swimming Pool follows the formula of making the author a crime mystery author who apparently mixes up reality and fiction. We've seen that before. The movie also fails to some extent because it doesn't really get the audience to care enough to pay close attention from the beginning given that it will turn into some puzzle for the audience. So I guess one can say the surprise succeeded but at the same time the setup is so dull that I wasn't paying all that much attention to what was going on or the details. Reading the various interpretations, it doesn't look like there isn't any one answer, which also makes it less interesting for me and shows that paying full attention would not have been any more rewarding. With a different cast and a less stiffer direction perhaps Swimming Pool would have been more effective.

SnoopyStyle Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) is a successful British crime fiction author. She's tired of everything and can't get started on her next novel. Her publisher John Bosload (Charles Dance) offers his french vacation home. It's the off-season, and she finds some peace until John's daughter Julie (Ludivine Sagnier) shows up. Julie is a sexually provocative girl challenging Sarah's reservations. Then one night Julie kills a man after having oral sex.The murder comes in very late in the movie, and the tension doesn't have enough time to rise. The first 2/3 of the movie has a good deal of sexual tension. Although Charlotte Rampling is a great actress, I wonder if the tension could be higher with a male lead. It's a slightly different feel with Rampling and Sagnier. Sagnier never overtly makes a pass at Rampling. I think the movie could have higher tension.

jerrywright15 Directed by Francois Ozon. Starring Charlotte Rampling and Ludivine Sagnier. Swimming Pool is a tale of a middle-aged author (Rampling) who has hit a bit of a slump in her writing career. Feeling like she is missing something in her writing she approaches her publisher, who offers her his house in France as a way to clear her head. Upon arriving at the house, Sarah (Rampling), finds the place peaceful and relaxing and eagerly begins work on her new novel. Events begin to change when her publisher's sexually uninhibited daughter arrives, bringing a wildly different lifestyle from the uptight British authors. A shaky relationship begins to form between the two but as time passes Sarah begins to realize that things are not what they appear to be; leading to a controversial ending that will leave viewers stunned.Let me start off by saying I don't find myself watching this type of movie on a regular basis, unless its strongly suggested to me or I'm being forced to watch it. When I say, "this type of movie", I'm not referring to the mentally contemplating script, sexual nature or specific genre; instead I'm referring to an older, slow paced, foreign film with little to no hype by my knowledge. That being said, I will now be broadening my movie horizons to include these films as this movie, overall, delivered wonderfully. Kudos to the cast, director, writers and everyone else involved as they brought a thought provoking movie with a nice Alfred Hitchcock type style thrown in.Dissecting the movie piece by piece to give you an understanding of whats right with the movie and whats wrong with the movie would be pointless; because if you look at the film as individual scenes or characters it becomes quite boring, with low to no action, no unique or special characters and, in my opinion a bit of a snooze fest, unless you have a strong fascination with female nudity. But, when you look at it as a whole picture, watching it from beginning to surprising ending you get an appreciation for the film and what its done. Suddenly you go back and notice little details throughout the movie that weren't significant before and you realize just how well the actors played their roles; or how tiny little details, insignificant before, become vital in helping you understand what is really going on.Normally I would tell you the great aspects of the film but because it is one of those movies that is only good once you watch it in its entirety, I find it hard to highlight specific items. I will tell you the actresses play their parts to a T. The twist at the end will get anybody who paid attention, and only confuse those who hardly focused. I consider myself a pretty decent movie detective but I still failed to guess what was really going on.There is a fair amount of female nudity. For the most part its only breast being displayed, which any teenager these days has seen on cable TV more than once; but there are also some full nude shots and sexual acts committed a couple of times throughout so if that bothers you, you might want to skip this film. What I found surprising was that Charlotte Rampling, who this is my first time watching I believe, seems like such an actual uptight semi-proper woman that I didn't believe she would show anything for the camera but actually goes completely exposed for a scene. So yes, expect sex and expect both female leads to be naked at some point; but don't expect it to be just thrown gratuitously in; there is a deeper reason for everything happening including the sex.The reason this movie falls to a 8 instead of anything higher, is due to a couple of things. One, there is a lot of dialogue spoken in French, so much that I feel I missed important or at least interesting conversations and with no subtitles there was no way of interpreting it. But I have been informed that not all copies are that way and most do feature subtitles so I'll be sure to look into that next time. Ignoring that, if you choose, the biggest reason this film fails to be higher then a 8, to me, is because actually watching the movie is a bit of a challenge. The film moves incredibly slowly with not a lot of scenes that keep you entertained. There is little to nothing that resembles an actual thriller, which this is billed as, until the final thirty minutes or so of the film. Which means for over an hour your watching an author write, eat and watch her house-mate swim and have sex; with conversation that doesn't really become meaningful until the end. Also, for a woman staying in beautiful France not much of the environment is shown other than a villa and restaurant. So the scenery could have used some work.PROS:If you can get through the film, which many have, I promise it will be worth it. You may even end up going back through the film to validate your conclusion, as the ending really is left up to you to decide. Sex and nudity, if that's your thing.CONS: Slow movie. Language Barrier unless you view it with subtitles. Sex and nudity, if that's not your thing. No scenery.I'd recommend to anyone looking for something slower paced, more character driven rather then action oriented. Or Someone who enjoys films that leave you to think things out.8/10 from me. P.S. I gave it an 8 because there simply wasn't much to fault the movie on not because the film itself was necessarily great, the ending in my opinion saves it.

Chris Smith (RockPortReview) Actress Ludivine Sagnier shined in the previously reviewed "Love Crime", but her breakout role came in the 2003 film "Swimming Pool". This time she is paired with the impeccable English actress Charlotte Rampling, who's long career has also spiked with this role. Sagnier's raw sexuality and self confidence sets this film on fire. Not to mention the much older Rampling who also gives a shockingly brazen performance.The story revolves around Rampling's character of Sarah Morton a best selling author of crime fiction novels. Based in London and fighting a loss of inspiration for her new novel her publisher suggests staying at his French villa to relax and recharge. She accepts and in short time finds the peaceful serenity of the Mediterranean to be as relaxing as it sounds. Being a writer Sarah prefers to be on her own and welcomes the quiet and sleepy surroundings. She is very conservative and quite British. She does call her publisher back in London and asks when he will join her but he keeps brushing her aside. She visits the local café on numerous occasions and chats up the mustached waiter Franck who comes into play later on.Sarah's peacefulness is shattered with the introduction of Julie (Sagnier), the publishers daughter who arrives to crash for a few weeks. Julie is young, impulsive and very in touch with her sexuality. They are exact opposites and are usually at odds with each other, but Sarah also finds her quite intriguing. Is she jealous? probably. Does she see a story there? Definitely. Julie brings home a different guy each night, and the sounds of them getting' busy awakens something in Sarah. She snoops around Julie's things and finds a diary, which she starts to spin into literary gold. She then asks her to dinner to get some more details. While Julie is skeptical of her kindness she eventually becomes wise to her plan.Then there's the swimming pool. When Sarah arrives the pool is covered and unloved. It is only when Julie arrives that it starts to heat up. It seems that when the pool comes to life so does Sarah. Julie spends most of her day lounging around the pool and sometimes wearing a bikini. When Julie brings Franck home one night they drink, smoke and dance. After Sarah goes to her room for the night she can't help but watch them as they go for a swim, she interrupt their interlude then goes to bed. The next morning Franck is gone and their is blood by the pool. Julie has a sort of breakdown as she thinks she killed him. She regains her composure and Sarah starts to help her get away with it."Swimming Pool" has one of those endings that results in good discussions afterward. You end up rethinking all of what you have just saw. Make sure to seek out the unrated version to get the full experience. The film contains copious amounts of sex and nudity and would be teen boys holy grail, but really its more that just a skin flick. It's French for cryin' out loud. The R-rated version is available on Netflix watch instantly.