This film owes a great deal of gratitude to the second collaboration between Francois Ozon and his leading lady, Charlotte Rampling. They ought to team up more.

As with the previous film, Under the Sand, this is an enigmatic piece of cinema. This film, I believe, has more to do with Sarah Morton's imagination than with the actual story presented to us. There are so many hidden clues within the story that everyone will have a different take in what is presented in the film and what the actual reality is.

Francois Ozon is not a boring director. He will always present an interesting story, fully developed, with many twists to get his viewer into going in different directions trying to interpret it all.

Charlotte Rampling is magnificent as Sarah Morton, the repressed author of mystery novels. Ludivine Sagnier is very good as the mysterious Julie, the alleged daughter of Sarah's publisher, but now, is she really that person?

The ending will baffle the viewer. This is a film that will stay and haunt one's mind for days.

Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) is a successful British crime fiction author. She's tired of everything and can't get started on her next novel. Her publisher John Bosload (Charles Dance) offers his french vacation home. It's the off-season, and she finds some peace until John's daughter Julie (Ludivine Sagnier) shows up. Julie is a sexually provocative girl challenging Sarah's reservations. Then one night Julie kills a man after having oral sex.

The murder comes in very late in the movie, and the tension doesn't have enough time to rise. The first 2/3 of the movie has a good deal of sexual tension. Although Charlotte Rampling is a great actress, I wonder if the tension could be higher with a male lead. It's a slightly different feel with Rampling and Sagnier. Sagnier never overtly makes a pass at Rampling. I think the movie could have higher tension.

In London, the successful and weird middle-age writer of police and mystery novels Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) is passing through a phase of lack of inspiration. Her publisher John Bosload (Charles Dance) invites her to spend some summertime days in his house in a small town in France, where there is inclusive a swimming pool. He also suggests her to make the experience of writing about a different theme. Sarah accepts the invitation and travels to the wonderful and lonely place. A few days later, she starts writing again, but her quiet rest is shaken with the unexpected arrival of Julie (Ludivine Sagnier),the sexy daughter of John. From that moment on, reality and dream blends in Sarah's world. I did not dislike this movie, but I believe it is indeed an excellent idea, wasted in a very disappointing conclusion. There are many unexplained subplots and the story is completely open to the most different interpretations, and of course I have mine. But without reading any information or clue from the writer and director François Ozon about his real intention, it is impossible to give a precise clarification. Europeans usually like this type of story, but in this situation, the film does not give necessary hints about the real intention of the plot, and the viewer can speculate only. Charlotte Rampling has a magnificent interpretation, Ludivine Sagnier has a very erotic performance, but to become an excellent film, many clarifications are missing. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): `Swimming Pool: À Beira da Piscina' (`Swimming Pool: On the Edge of the Swimming Pool')