2 out of 5

Director: François Ozon

Expertly shot, acted, and paced, Swimming Pool hovers a fine line between thriller, drama, character study, and mystery, and manages to capture an element of intrigue from the first shot. So why only two stars? Because at films end, I feel the overall essence of the movie delivers its viewers a disservice. Charlotte Rampling is excellent as an older mystery writer, feeling bored in her successful career. On the advice of her publisher, she vacations at his home in France, and has her inspirations ignited. Things take a turn when the publishers daughter (Sagnier) – rambunctious, sexually promiscuous – shows up to stay at the home as well. The plot dovetails into several interesting themes from here. Two things: writer/director Ozon apparently wanted to make something showing the difficulty of composing a screenplay or film. There is much misdirection and ambiguousness along the way. So. Mis-direction can be used entertainingly, for films sake, as is the case in much of Hitchcock and… lets say The Usual Suspects. Ambiguousness, combined with personal motives, can be used to great effect… such as in Lynchs career. However, I am of the opinion that when you use both of these elements to accomplish something narrow in scope, it creates a barrier between film and viewer. Cache would be an example of this. And Swimming Pool, while much less political, resides in this realm, something purposefully vague that does encourage thought, but all of those thoughts lead to concise ends. If this were the point, maybe to solve a mystery, it would be entertaining. But when its so narrow as to exclude anyone who doesnt agree with / feel what the film-maker is saying, the movie is rendered pointless. Now none of this is directly in the picture, and so it can still be enjoyed as an expertly acted and shot film. Though beneath the surface – pun obnoxiously intended – its less impressive.