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90A delicious little thriller about an uptight, ill-humored English mystery writer who becomes enmeshed in murder, Swimming Pool is at once comical, contrary, resourceful and ambiguous.
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90Charlotte Rampling is the best reason, though far from the only one, to see Swimming Pool, a mesmerizing mystery, plus a wonderfully sensuous fantasy.
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90The tension is never crushing, as it would be in an American job. Instead, it grows by increments, until you realize the movie, in its quiet way, has you snared entirely.
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83The narrative logic of Swimming Pool slips through our hands like cool water, shimmery and light-dappled, leaving behind the pleasures of summer heat and goose bumps.
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83Occasionally falters in its symbolism and storytelling, but still unnerves because we're never quite sure of our bearings, or whose "reality" we're watching.
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80Ultimately, Swimming Pool belongs to Ozon, and while incorporating a carefully measured, quietly menacing style that summons up vintage Hitchcock and Chabrol, he has made it unmistakably -- and entertainingly -- his very own.
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80Swimming Pool returns Ozon to the psychological complexities of "Under The Sand" and his early mini-feature "See The Sea," and he again proves himself a master of building shocking moments from a series of seemingly insignificant gestures and throwaway lines.
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80Ozon misses some chances with Sarah, but Rampling doesn't skip a beat. Freed from the burden of likability, the actress pushes the character from near-farce to near-tragedy, without once appealing to sentimentalism.
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80Simultaneously a thoroughly mannered, mischievously artificial confection and an acute piece of psychological realism. Whose psychology, and which reality, remains ambiguous even after the tart, delicious final twist.
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80Working predominantly in English for the first time, the French director has crafted an absorbing tale about the merging of fiction with reality, propelled by contrasting performances from Charlotte Rampling and Ludivine Sagnier.
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78As atypical a summer film as they come -– no explosions, no car chases, no Arnold -– but immensely more pleasing than films with all three of those summertime staples.
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75It's Sagnier, a young Bardot, who lifts the movie, and Rampling, 58, who gives it nuance, not to mention a nude scene that shows off a body Demi Moore would envy. These two make it seductive fun to be fooled.
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75After it is over, you will want to go back and think things through again, and I can help you by suggesting there is one, and only one, interpretation that resolves all of the difficulties, but if I told you, you would have to kill me.
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75Immersed here in both the fair, dreamy air and chilly, deeper waters, Rampling and Sagnier make Swimming Pool a fine sunlit noir, oozing sensuality and menace.
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75Whether the movie leaves you confused or angry, you will be stimulated to long discussion afterward. How often does that happen these days?
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75But the ending, at once ambiguous and obvious, is a letdown -- a frustratingly literal-minded, or literary-minded, conceit.
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Clever and unhurried mystery.
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75With a little sex, some mystery, a little sex, an appealing title and a little sex, France's Swimming Pool has what it takes to become an art house audience magnet, especially amid the heat of summer.
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75Very much a genre picture, relying on notions of suspense, surprise, and comeuppance. Indeed, at the center of this movie is a question of whether what we're seeing is really to be believed.
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75While not stunningly original, is fresh and compelling enough to hold the viewer's attention through its entire running length.
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75It’s worth seeing twice just for the privilege of watching Rampling and Sagnier match each other stroke for stroke.
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75The film takes place half in English, half in French. The chilly, responsibility-laden world of British society contrasts with the sunny, relaxed quality of life in fare-thee-well France. If these seem like cliches, Ozon and Bernheim exploit them so adroitly that they never become stale.
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75In its own slightly disturbing way, this psychological thriller serves as an absorbing diversion without sapping brain cells -- almost the perfect summer movie for smart people.
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70Tricky thriller relies on its smoothly unrippled surface, leisurely pacing and slightly awkward performances to create a false sense of security that sets up viewers for a shock when it takes an abrupt turn into Patricia Highsmith territory.
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70All shiny surfaces and clever moves designed to blur the lines between fantasy and reality and uncover the kinkiness that lies within us all.
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70Less a thriller than a comedy, and a formulaic one at that, predicated on an amusing but bizarrely simplistic clash of personalities and cultures.
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70Until the movie gets lost in its ultimately convoluted conceit, however, it's a superb modulation of menace, tension, mystery and eroticism.
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70Unfortunately, after the well-honed psychological melodrama of its first half, this wanders off into the metaphysical territory of Ingmar Bergman's "Persona" (a much better film).
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63Seductive, ultimately frustrating.
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63Along with co-writer Emmanuele Bernhein, Ozon...has crafted a contemplative blend of fantasy and reality that illuminates the mysteries of the creative process.
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63Well-acted, nicely shot, slick and certainly sexy, Swimming Pool may be all foreplay and no climax, but what the heck -- there are worse ways to be teased.
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60Even though it has some amusing moments, Swimming Pool crawls entirely too slowly toward -- well, toward nothing much.
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60Ozon devises tantalizing scenarios and immerses himself completely--then seems happy to tread water.
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60May Ozon and Rampling do more at the level of this film's first hour. Or maybe they could amputate the last part of Swimming Pool and finish the film as it deserves.
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50The suspenseful set-up never pays off, but Rampling continues the impressive collaboration with Ozon that began with "Under the Sand."
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50Ozon has a smooth gift for scenes of unease, but ultimately Swimming Pool liquifies into a dreary puzzle movie.
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38A hollow excuse for an erotic mystery.
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