You won't be disappointed!

Load of rubbish!!

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Sarah Morton, a middle-aged English writer specialising in detective novels, goes to stay in a country villa in France owned by John Bosload, her publisher, in order to work on her new book. One day Sarah is surprised to find a young woman in the property and, assuming that she is a trespasser, asks her indignantly what she is doing in the house. The girl, Julie, explains that she is John's daughter, and that her father has given her permission to use the house. Sarah and Julie begin to live together in the house, but theirs turns out to be an uneasy relationship because of their very different lifestyles. Sarah is looking for peace and solitude to concentrate on her writing, but her life is constantly disrupted by the brash, noisy Julie who brings a succession of lovers back to the house.At first the film seems to be developing into a comedy of manners (or perhaps a comedy of bad manners) based around the contrast between a stereotypically sexually and emotionally repressed English spinster and a stereotypically sexually uninhibited French girl. (Julie is half-English but has a French mother, one of John's former mistresses, and has lived all her life in France; she speaks English with a heavy accent). Sarah is disgusted and, at the same time, secretly fascinated by Julie's irregular sex-life. There is even a hint of a lesbian attraction towards the younger woman; it is notable that whenever Sarah is looking at Julie the camera seems to zoom in lovingly on Ludivine Sagnier's generally scantily-clad body.And then, suddenly, the film takes a sinister turn and becomes not a comedy but a sort of mystery thriller. Franck, a waiter in a local café and one of Julie's many boyfriends, disappears, and Sarah suspects not only that he may have been killed but also that Julie may be responsible.In his review of the film Roger Ebert stated that "François Ozon (the director and co-writer) understands as Hitchcock did the small steps by which a wrong decision grows in its wrongness into a terrifying paranoid nightmare". He was not the only critic to draw a comparison with Hitchcock, but I wonder if such critics actually saw the same film as I did. To begin with, it is normally random chance which plunges Hitchcock's heroes and heroines into a terrifying nightmare, without the need for any wrong decision on their part. (Think of Roger Thornhill in "North by North-West" or the married couples in the two versions of "The Man who Knew Too Much"). Ebert may have been thinking of Marion Crane in "Psycho", who does indeed find herself in a nightmare as a direct result of stealing from her employer, but she is not really typical of Hitchcock's characters. Secondly, in "Swimming Pool" the "nightmare" arrives suddenly out of the blue rather than by small steps. In a matter of minutes Julie goes straight from performing a sex act on Franck to battering him to death with a rock, without any motive ever being given. The only possible explanation is that Julie is mentally deranged, but even if one accepts this explanation one still has to explain why Sarah should help an insane murderer to dispose of the body and to cover up her crime.The ending of the film has been described as "ambiguous". It has been suggested that Sarah has been alone at the villa all the time and that Julie, Franck and some of the other characters only exist in her imagination as characters in the novel she is working on. Now I am well aware that the idea of a work of fiction supposedly created by an author who is himself or herself a character in a larger work of fiction is a variety of what has become known as "metafiction" and is one of the games which authors sometimes play with their readers. This game, moreover, can be a very effective literary advice; something similar occurs in Ian McEwan's novel "Atonement", and I have great admiration both for that novel and for the film which Joe Wright made of it. The concept of "metafiction", however, does not serve to turn a bad plot into a good one, and the plot of "Swimming Pool", whether one regards it as having been created by the real Francois Ozon or the fictional Sarah Mason, is a pretty poor one with more holes than a colander. Moreover, when I was watching the film myself it never occurred to me that Ozon might be playing metafictional games; I assumed that we were supposed to take everything that happened at the villa at face value.The titular swimming pool, which plays a part in the story, and the theme of two women trying to dispose of the body of one man, may have been intended by Ozon as a reference to Clouzot's "Les Diaboliques", but his film cannot bear comparison with that masterpiece of the French cinema. Nor, pace Mr Ebert, can it bear comparison with "Psycho" or Hitchcock's other classics. Even the Master's weaker movies ("Stage Fright", "Torn Curtain", etc.) were normally more coherent than this. In terms of quality about the only Hitchcock film I would compare it to would be something like "Jamaica Inn", but then I have always considered that to be Hitch's worst film. It would have got a lower mark but for a decent acting contribution from Charlotte Rampling. 4/10

This movie is a real precious piece of art ,and the acting done by "Charlotte Rampling" deserves my thanks and appreciation and admiration too, i didn't think that it's going to amaze me with such twisted plot , this movie is in my ten most confusing ends movies , you will not be able to find an appropriate,logical interpretation for the story that easy , every explanation will refuted by another explanation from another viewer,therefor i think this film plot was accurately and purposely done to confound the viewer/mind-blow them so every one has to make interpretation that fits them .

Swimming Pool (2003): Dir: Francois Ozon / Cast: Charlotte Rampling, Ludivine Sagnier, Charles Dance, Jean-Marie Lamour, Marc Fayolle: Spellbinding erotic mystery about beauty, lust, age, dysfunction, and what emerges from the pool whether it be fall leaves or the captivating image of young skin. It stars Charlotte Rampling as a successful mystery writer who is sent to her publisher's holiday home to rest and regain her composure for writing. Peace and quiet are interrupted by the arrival of her publisher's French daughter played by Ludivine Sagnier who is loud, obnoxious and brings home an array of males for a night of sinful passion. What is most fascinating is its reality and fantasy base that is never clear but then again, that is the point. Was a murder committed or is it just the prize of a latest bestseller? Director Francois Ozon brings viewers deep into the mind and reality and is backed by tremendous performances by Rampling and Sagnier with an underwritten role by Charles Dance as the publisher who is only present when convenient for the plot. Jean-Marie Lamour appears as a male caught within Sagnier's web of passion and regrets it severely. Marc Fayolle also makes an appearance as a character named Marcel. While some elements aren't exactly clear, it does play like a mystery novel within slick compelling filmmaking and peep show. Score: 7 ½ / 10

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.