Water Lilies

"Water Lilies"
Celine Sciamma, 2007

Marie (Pauline Acquart), who is a lanky, 15-year-old girl, is the focus of the French filmmaker Celine Sciamma's director debut, "Water Lilies." Our protagonist is at an awkward stage in her life: she only seems to have one friend, Anne (Louise Blachere), who is unusually large and childlike, and she is at an emotional and physical crossroads. Her feet are disproportionately large and she still drinks from juice packs, which she violently stomps upon draining them - in short, she is a child who impatiently lingers on the verge of adulthood.

Marie's venture into adolescence begins when she, while observing a synchronized swimming contest for unspecified reasons, develops a crush for the team's captain, Floriane (Adele Haenel). Floriane is pretty, and she seems to be more mature than Maria or Anne, which makes her the target of a number of men, all of whom she rejects. Maria, her eyes down-turned and her voice soft, befriends the swimmer, who slowly warms to her. "Water Lilies" has a decent premise, and it avoids many of the aggravating pitfalls of growing up films by discarding needless auxiliary characters and gossip-manufacturing cliques. But in doing so, we lose a sense of the social networking that defines our characters' place in their world.

"Water Lilies" itself feels as underdeveloped as its characters. Celine Sciamma doesn't have a good grasp of character interactions, which always feel strangely labored, nor of how to use pacing to create an effective character arc. There are interesting ideas that are hidden here, but these are never allowed to blossom; in part because Sciamma has an unfortunate tendency of focusing her camera on Marie's longing visage, rather than on what is going on in her surroundings. And Marie, we find, isn't all that fascinating a character: she mostly observes everything in silence, and when she does speak, she says surprisingly cruel things. "Water Lilies" does not seem intent on exploring the "why's" - why Marie is so angry, or why Floriane is so unwilling to confront her sexuality. Instead, the film merely stands by and observes the characters, leaving its frustrated viewers in limbo.

Rating: 5

First Viewed: 8/18/08, in 35 mm projection - IMDb