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Water Lilies

Play trailer Poster for Water Lilies 2007 1h 40m Comedy Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
82% Tomatometer 49 Reviews 68% Popcornmeter 2,500+ Ratings
Set during a sultry summer in a French suburb, Marie is desperate to join the local pool's synchronized swimming team, but is her interest solely for the sake of sport or for a chance to get close to Floriane, the bad girl of the team? Sciamma, and the two leads, capture the uncertainty of teenage sexuality with a sympathetic eye in this delicate drama of the angst of coming-of-age.
Water Lilies

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Critics Consensus

Water Lilies is a sharply-observed, provocative coming-of-age story that captures the anxieties of the early teen years.

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Critics Reviews

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Drew Gregory Autostraddle The greatest strength of Sciamma's film is that Sciamma herself is the point of view - not Marie. Feb 26, 2021 Full Review Alyx Vesey Bitch Media The film lacks much insight into the characters' subjectivities.... [But] I think the relationships developed and intimacies shared in [Water Lilies is] moving and deeply felt. Jan 11, 2021 Full Review Deborah Ross The Spectator This is a brave film, and admirable for that. It's brave because it's sparse and stripped to the bone; because it's about teenage girls but it doesn't hide behind cell phones and make-up and fashion and annoying parents who just don't understand. Aug 23, 2018 Full Review Chase Burns The Stranger (Seattle, WA) Even with this debut, it's clear Sciamma is a force. Dec 9, 2021 Full Review Lisa Nesselson France24 Parents and other authority figures are so tangential... Nov 11, 2020 Full Review Mattie Lucas From the Front Row Display(s) a potent insight into teenage sexuality, unspoken desires, and unrequited love. Rated: 3.5/4 Jul 6, 2019 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Audience Member A beautiful film depicting how it feels to come of age and to experience the thrill of attraction. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 07/27/24 Full Review Audience Member Personally, I found this movie very entertaining and touching too. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes a good drama film. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review Audience Member a body constructed by disassembling Lauret's failure seems to suggest that he cannot fully integrate into the boy's world, and that the decisive reason is because of the biological gender gap between humans. But this is not the end of Lore's experiment. Before the swimming meet with the children, Laure takes his own red swimsuit out of the box and cuts off his upper body. A girl's body, which is integrally constituted in a swimsuit, is separated by Lore's hand and foretells that she will leap into another body image. Seeing himself in a swimsuit in front of a mirror, Laure feels unsatisfied with just a separate swimsuit, and makes a substitute for a man's root that comes into his hand while pretending to play with clay. The clay genitals successfully finish their job in swimsuits and wait for the day they are reused in Lauret's jewel box. "Some of the bodies, which are often absent, are conveniently portable through the children's imagination, threatening the 'original' position." As his brother Jeanne (Maron Levana) and Lauret act like a gentleman by sticking their cut hair together like a mustache, becoming a man is a kind of game in which they partially reconstruct themselves and find other uses. The fact that the biological part is decisive also means that the boundaries between sexes are at risk. If the fact that Laure has other sexes plays a decisive role in the story, it forms a net of reversed meanings from the level of image. In the "Truth or Dialogue" game, Michael (Laure) chews the gum that Lisa (Gene Dyson) chewed at the request of her children. On the part of the person who made him do it, Michael thought he was a boy, but just because he was a girl doesn't change the meaning of his action. The reason why Lisa and Michael look awkward in the scene of makeup is because they looked like a child imitating an adult or a boy wearing makeup. The reason why his mother wore a blue dress to Lauret is because it doesn't suit Lauret at all. While the phenomenon of cross-gender costumes continues to be consistent with biological sex, the world of clear gender segregation accepts a more distinct mixture without even knowing it. In that sense, synchronized swimming in "Water lilies" is similar to dancing. Synchronized swimming is an image sport in which members dance to the beat, and a body sport that is divided. The audience watches the body parts like the legs, arms, and heads that are up on the water. Selin Siama transforms sports on the surface of the water into underwater exercises through Marie (Pauline Aquar). Under the water, as opposed to accurate and precise underwater movements, the flexible and hasty body movements, which can be grasped at once why they are compared to octopus, spread naked. A bird's-eye shot of two girls jumping into the water, connected to support each other, shows a gesture that flatly integrates separated bodies and refuses to belong to either the upper or lower part of the water. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/29/23 Full Review andy h 4.3 there's a bit of forced chemistry build up, but anyone with empathy or a libido can't look away from how well it's made and the passionate still scenes. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member A beautifully tender drama about young love in its many shapes and sizes is rich, honest, and sensitive towards its young cast who shine under Sciamma's direction. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/18/23 Full Review Audience Member Water Lilies is a great coming of age story that feels like it's the awkward middle chapter of an Eighth Grade/Book Smart trilogy. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/10/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Water Lilies

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Cast & Crew

Movie Info

Synopsis Set during a sultry summer in a French suburb, Marie is desperate to join the local pool's synchronized swimming team, but is her interest solely for the sake of sport or for a chance to get close to Floriane, the bad girl of the team? Sciamma, and the two leads, capture the uncertainty of teenage sexuality with a sympathetic eye in this delicate drama of the angst of coming-of-age.
Director
Céline Sciamma
Producer
Jérôme Dopffer, Bénédicte Couvreur
Screenwriter
Céline Sciamma
Production Co
Lilies Films, Les Productions Balthazar
Genre
Comedy, Drama
Original Language
French (France)
Release Date (DVD)
Sep 16, 2008
Box Office (Gross USA)
$77.3K
Runtime
1h 40m
Aspect Ratio
Flat (1.85:1)