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Teenage pain

Deborah Ross

Wednesday, 12th March 2008

Water Lilies
15, Curzon Soho and key cities

Each girl is grappling with desire in her own particular, adolescent, psychosexual way. By Jove, yes. Anne desires Floriane’s boyfriend, François, hunky star of the water-polo team. Marie’s desire kicks in as she becomes increasingly besotted with Floriane. Floriane is desired by everyone but is being desired everything it is cracked up to be? What is her game, anyway? This is not a happy film. There are a few happy moments — the girls playing some sort of game that involves storing water in their cheeks; Anne’s unique shoplifting method — but that is about it. The rest is claustrophobic and often painfully uncomfortable to watch. Anne actually gets what she wants, but her dream is brutally realised. Marie is unsettling in and of herself, being so intensely watchful and reserved. Plus, there is one extremely disconcerting scene of girl-on-girl sexual experimentation. How one longs, at times, for a few silly boys on bicycles to break it all up. On the other hand, if you are making a film about painful and uncomfortable feelings, perhaps it is only right that it is painful and uncomfortable to sit through, too.

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. It is no Mean Girls. However, that said, with its naturalistic, often aimless conversation it is, at times, almost as excruciatingly slow as it is pent-up. GET ON WITH IT, GIRLS! MY SEXUAL DESIRE STARTED WAKING UP ON THE TUESDAY AND WE WERE DONE BY THURSDAY! Still, I’m guessing that the girls in this are considerably more interesting and dimensional than Hannah Montana, with or without the special specs.

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