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Emotionally brutal tale of teenage sexual yearnings. Pauline Acquart is a gawky 14 or 15 year old who obsesses over the slightly older, supposedly sexually promiscuous captain of her school's synchronized swimming team (Adele Haenel). Meanwhile, Acquart's tubby best friend (Louise Blanchere) obsesses over a boy, Francois, who is himself trying to bang Haenel. The film sometimes seems just a tiny bit sleazy because it really does focus a lot on these horny teenage girls, and, as it's mostly told from the point of view of Acquart, it sometimes seems obsessed with Haenel's body. But whatever prurient reasons one might have for watching this, it's impossible to deny how deeply it bores into the psyche of Acquart. And, Christ, does she give a fantastic performance. It also has a lot of insight into Haenel's character. You kind of hate her, just because she's so damn manipulative and cruel toward Acquart. She almost immediately recognizes what Acquart wants, as she's so used to getting the same attitude from the men in her life, and she uses it to her advantage. In one particularly painful sequence, she grinds on Acquart on the dance floor, but only because she knows some douchebag guy will find it hot. The two girls are just about to kiss for the first time, and Acquart opens her eyes to find Haenel has backed into the guy behind her and started to grind on him instead. The Blanchere subplot, on the other hand, is somewhat less successful. She's kind of dumb and childish (for what it's worth, Acquart, who has presumably been her friend since they were kids, is starting to feel the same; Blanchere is kind of like a safe place to back off to when her relationship with Haenel gets to be too frustrating). The culmination of her part of the film, though, is pretty satisfying. This is definitely one of the best films I've ever seen about teenagers. Despite the fact that I'm a straight guy, Water Lilies dragged some very painful memories from my own teen years to the surface.
score 8/10
zetes 22 August 2010
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2299580/ |
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29-3-2021 04:24:07