One of my all time favorites.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

"Girls Can't Swim (Les filles ne savent pas nager)" gets a lot right about teens, in a debut by writer/director Anne-Sophie Birot: The endless summer feeling of life Down the Shore (only here the Shore is at Brittany so there's no Bruce Springsteen music, let alone any beach music). The implied class tensions between townies and seasonals. The restless rebellion of adolescence, particularly as bursting sensuality.The casual back-and-forth between parents and teens as the kids alternate between neediness and independence, complicated by the parents' own financial and relationship problems.And most particularly the exaggerated passions of teen girl friendship. But the aimlessness of summer vacation is mimicked too much in the pacing, with an abrupt culmination that's not fair to the characters. I must have missed the explanation for the title. Clearly Eric Rohmer's "Pauline on the Beach" has haunted today's French women filmmakers as this is the second such movie I've seen in a year that feels like an angry response to that sage putting a teen girl amidst adult sharks, after "Fat Girl (a ma soeur)."(originally written 5/11/2002)

This movie was doing so well. But the ending just killed it dead.Basically the story is about these two teenage girls that are summer friends. But the summer the movie takes place in, the one girl Lise can't make it cause of family issues. Or money or something like that. The other girl, Gwen's parents are also having family issues. Money and the such. Her dad is lazy, blah blah blah. during this summer apart Gwen is growing up, getting with boys, smoking, etc, etc. Everything to this point is fine and dandy. I was enjoying the build of the characters and I like how European films are so much more open then American films. But in anycase all that is ruined by the stupid and pointless ending.(Spoiler alert!!) Lise finally makes it down to the beach house to stay with Gwen. All is well with the world for about 10 minutes. Then Gwen and her boyfriend are having sex with Lise in the room, so Lise trys to join in. It is implied a lot during the movie that this friendship IS deeper or can be deeper then just two friends. But at this point you see that Gwen is not interested. She slaps Lise, and the movie losses all sense from that point on. Not because Gwen is upset, but where the filmmakers go from there. They fight, they hate each other, Gwen wants Lise to leave. And instead of just having her leave, or even having them talk about it, they decide to go and have Lise start making out with Gwen's dad(why in every movie about teenage girls do the dads and older men all have to be sexual demons)Gwen's dad is into it until he gets her top off and realizes he shouldn't be doing this.("OHHH, now you realize it, moron") Lise is upset, and does what ever 15 year old girl does when she gets rejected by her best friends dad. She pushes him down the stairs and kills him. Then Gwen comes home finds the body, and Lise runs away. Credits role. I have no idea what the point of that ending was. What they were trying to say. But it killed a pretty good and open effort on the lives of two teenage girls. Far more open and realistic then most Hollywood fodder. But that ending was just so stupid.

The film lacked direction - where were we going? I would have preferred further exploration of the sexual tension between Lise and Gwen. What were all the erotic/romantic letters from Gwen all about? Once Lise shows up, Gwen treats her bad. The viewer had been led to believe that a certain amount of sexual attraction existed, but I never saw it at all, and that is unfortunate. It would have given an average film an "edge" over other coming of age stories.

Being a long-time viewer of French cinema, I had no problems with the pacing or style of this film. In fact, that's why I like European film in general, for a break from the predictability of Hollywood/American cinema.Actually, I didn't think the pace of this film was particularly slow. "Gwen" seemed constantly on the move, one crisis quickly followed another in her family.Both girls, as perhaps most people, seemed to have positive natures, but life was dealing them some hard blows, and neither had the tools to overcome the difficulties being dealt them.Both needed affection and love, but were going about getting in unhealthy ways. They seemed to be searching for affection almost blindly, or instinctually, to me.I felt empathy for both characters; and as for the comment that "the lead needs to be better looking," I disagree. I thought both were very attractive in their own way.