In Ozon's "Swimming Pool," such is the relationship between Sarah and Julie. Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) is a best-selling British crime novelist whose publisher, John (Charles Dance), sends her to his house in southern France for a month of quiet writing. The estate is a perfect haven-a dream, and Sarah is roused from it when Julie (French starlet Ludivine Sagnier), John's unmentioned and illegitimate daughter, shows up in the living room.
Sarah already feels unattractive after realizing that John has neither the intention nor desire of joining her, and Julie's beauty and loud, flourishing sex life torment her. What's worse is that Julie is friendly with Sarah, making Sarah feel beastly for her childish hatred. Sagnier's acting (which was, in the eyes of the casting directory, clearly secondary to her beauty), is forgettable, but Rampling has a knack for expressing middle-aged angst. When a topless Julie, mangoes bursting, affably plops next to Sarah to chat, Sarah's resentment of Julie's confidence and hospitality is so violent that one half-expects Sarah to slap her. ("Get a bloody shirt on!" Whack!) The women's stark incompatibility is at a peak, but the tense moment is not without a comic effect-such opposites are always amusing. They are a disastrous couple: Sarah, a model of buttoned-up Britishness who remains clothed poolside, and Julie, a French girl double-fisting glasses of joie de vivre who doesn't even realize she's neglected to dress. Sarah sends the top-heavy sprite away with a brusque "I have to work," but Rampling's expression makes it clear that she is saying "I'm jealous of your body and I wish you were mean so I could hate you for it." Ah, the psychology of women.
Sarah's hot jealousy of Julie, which describes so well the curiously wicked competition among women everywhere, is brilliant. By this point in the film, however, it becomes time to cater to a sunny conclusion, and Sarah overcomes her envy, allowing an against-the-odds friendship to grow. Given the complexity of the women's differences, this development alone could have easily occupied the rest of the running time, and it could have been lovely-if it had been executed well. Unfortunately, Ozon abandons the strengths of his film's beginning for a ridiculous whirlwind of new and meaningless plot twists.
Julie gets into some sort of hysteric fit, and mistakes Sarah for her dead mother. Sarah seduces Marcel, the five-foot octogenerian gardener. Sarah meets Marcel's daughter, who is a mysterious dwarf and alludes to the mysterious death of Julie's mysterious mother. Julie and Sarah smoke a joint with Franck, a town waiter who flirts with Sarah. Franck is murdered, there is a messy burial, and Sarah throws away her career and good name for the world of romance novels. Her choice, weakly connected to Julie's wistful wishes for her mother, is meant to be triumphant.
Ozon's lack of restraint is embarrassing-one begins to wonder, is there anything on the cutting-room floor? Did Ozon make any choices?
This despicable series of events melts into a dreamy end sequence of slow-motion shots of Sarah, Julie and a chubbier version of Julie, also John's daughter, whose existence is left entirely unexplained. The End.
Perhaps-and this is a big, generous "perhaps"-Ozon was trying, "Adaptation"-style, to fuse Sarah's detective writing with the plot of the film. But Ozon is no Spike Jonze-the entrance of each absurd addition to the story is awkward, and since it has no reason to be there it confuses, rather than enriches, the narrative.
With some self-control and a little style, Ozon might have designed the story of Sarah and Julie into a smart and funny portrait of women, aging and cattiness. But like a hyperactive child who hasn't learned to hold it, he ruined the "Pool" for everybody.