Water Lilies | Rotten Tomatoes

Water Lilies

2007

1 hr. 25 min.

Comedy

Drama

List

82%

49 Reviews

Tomatometer

67%

2,500+ Ratings

Audience Score

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.

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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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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

K N

I really liked this <3. Such a good coming-of-age movie with important themes.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/08/22

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

Audience Member

Water Lilies is a sensitive - and sometimes raw - coming of age film about female sexuality that showcases the early talents of writer-director Céline Sciamma.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/19/23

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

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Céline Sciamma

Director

Pauline Acquart

Marie

Louise Blachère

Anne

Adèle Haenel

Floriane

Warren Jacquin

François

Barbara Renard

Natacha

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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

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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
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