What a waste of my time!!!

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

A black and white dream in a color sleep. You can't understand why Marie is so upset? Why Anne is so fool and why Florian is so alone? But you can feel all of them. There is no twist in the story but It is sincere. You never see the girls' parents but you know why you can't see them, you know where they are . As if they don't exist because they don't have any effect. You see the absolute black color in the movie but you want to close your eyes. Yes, water lilies love water even though there is no clear water in their land.

The French invented the film. And made the first films. Which were just a freak show display: boring short scenes demonstrating the new technique. It was a good policy because a 15 minute movie eats up far more film than a trigger happy photographer in the same amount of time. Once the Americans started doing business with the new tool the French had a hard time following. At the start of the 20th century they are into nationalism and cheap romance, but nothing like the Germans. After World War II they start building a glorious virtual history with easy comedy and some drama. Hollywood builds up large productions? They are going to do the same: make a list of stars and use the power of the state to impose quotas on the consumption of imported cultural goods. The New Wave was an attempt to make something. Well polished movies trying the realism mastered by the Italians some decades ago. But that was over in less than two decades. And even with the state restrictions imported movies are far more interesting even when dubbed.So in the 1990s some independent makers started exploiting shock. Sex. Unconventional. Abusive. Usually without consent. Finally 2000s brought the new step into pedophilia. Label it as art. Sell it to an audience of old males.This is a very slow movie about four youngsters. Sex. No family. No relation with the reality of the constricted Catholic society. While the French can spend their holidays with their parents well into their 40s, there is no adult here. Teens in this fairy tale seem to be able to sleep where they please. Some might argue this is some fairy tale so the reality has nothing to do with it. But even the characters are badly drawn. The chubby who is too scared to undress with the other girls at the pool where she trains is bold enough to enter the boys locker room. And deliver a message in front of everyone. And the young boys barely notice her.The relationships are also sketchy. Although it is very important for the final part, the relationship between the boy and the "cheerleader" is barely shown leaving big gaps.Bad script, bad acting, only a vehicle to deliver to a particular audience a scene of young girls masturbating.Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

I put off watching 'Water Lilies' because its billing made me feel that this would be a film about (yawn) synchronised swimming: in fact, it's about three teenage girls exploring their sexuality, only one of whom is a swimmer, and that fact is of marginal importance in the story. I like the way it shows the girls as keen to experiment but inside, unaware of what it is they want: and it captures nicely the "hanging-roundness" quality of teenage existence, with nothing to do except pretend that you fit in. Yet even though it is well acted and observed, 'Water Lilies' didn't move me that deeply. Perhaps it's the tripartite viewpoint that reduces empathy with any one character; I would also have liked to see a little more of their lives, away from their journeys of sexual exploration. But it's still a nice film, although a slight one.

From the initial frame to the very last one, this film bring us into the world of puberty at the rhythm of a ballet. The elegance of the camera moves around one of today's most controversial subjects, and it pictures the lives of two young teenagers in a public swimming pool. Three 15 yo girls living in the suburb of Cergy-Pontoise. A beautiful Floriane with a great swimming talent, Marie and an overweight friend named Marie, who has a crash for male swimmer. Fear and desires of three teenagers in a wonderful painting of synchronized swimming.The camera moves around the subjects as a voyeur, or a floating ghost. It enters the locker room, the swimming pool, the showers and the house parties.