I recently reviewed Ozon’s previous film “8 Femmes”. It is funny that Ozon took the same idea again, but worked it out totally differently. “Swimming Pool” again is an old fashioned detective, but this time no light musical. An English writer goes to the house in France of her publisher to find out that also her publishers never-mentioned French daughter uses it to enjoy herself and her lovers. Sarah first is extremely irritated by Julies behaviour, but later gets intrigued by her and starts writing about Julie.
The film is minimal and slow and really balances on the border between boredom and gripping, without bending too much towards the first. Well done I must say, but the end of the film is really not what Ozon should have done. All the film there is nothing wrong, but still Ozon wanted a few changes of plot which he puts in the last three minutes. Too bad. All in all a nice film, but I suggest you wait until it is out on video. Strange by the way, “Swimming Pool” had its Dutch premiere last week, while it played in Belgium two months ago.