SnoopyStyle Scrawny Marie (Pauline Acquart) and awkward chubby friend Anne (Louise Blachère) are standard outsiders. It's summer and they hang out at the pool watching the synchronized swimmers. Marie befriends beautiful Floriane (Adèle Haenel) who leads the swim team. Floriane is the subject of much gossip. Marie starts hanging out with Floriane putting pressure on her friendship with Anne. Meanwhile Anne is obsessed with hunky François.It's a story of sexual searching and an awkward coming-of-age. There are a few daring scenes. I love when Marie and Anne have a fight. However the plot feels a bit too slight. It's too quiet and the danger is all internal. I want more conflicts. In the end, some stuff happens but they all end up in the same place.

rubiflores143 I don't usually write reviews but I felt the need to point out that through out this movie I kept murmuring: "This isn't right", "No!", "Why?", and many things along this line. I'm not trying to imply that this was a bad movie but if you are an American, don't expect this to be something Universal Studios would film. With every next scene I would think: How can they film this? But that may be my American mind. I'll give it a neutral 5 rate, since I'm still unsure how I feel about it.

zetes 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.

jerrystahl666 I sat down expecting Les cousins dangereux and got something else. If you are in it for the chance and some kinky stuff probably not for you (although there are some very odd sexual moments). The movie is driven by some rather bazaar ideas about sex which leads one to conclude that these girls are growing up in Puritan New England rather than 21st century France. I liked the movie because it was very weird and very different. It is one of those sub-titled movies where you forget you are reading the dialog because you get sucked in. I spent most of the movie trying to figure out if the girls were full of it or just being French.