MovieChat Forums > Swimming Pool (2003) Discussion > I thought I had this figured out....

I thought I had this figured out....

posted 12 years ago by sunznc
17 replies | jump to latest

A friend of mine and I just rewatched this on DVD. I hadn't seen it for a while. I thought I had it all figured out.
Here is what confuses me; on the dvd you can watch deleted scenes. John (the editor) says over the phone, "the new story isn't about my daughter is it?" Sarah tells him no. So, Julie does indeed exist.
Is everything that happens at the house, all of it, Sarah's new book or is her new book about Julie's mother's book that was supposedly burned?
And did Sarah really help cover up the murder or is that also part of her book?

[–] worldofbong 12 years ago

I'm not sure this movie really provides concrete answers like that? Part of the fun is that the viewer gets to decide how to interpret it all

Personally I interpreted it as the author imagining Julie the whole time she was in the house (Sarah was the one sleeping with these older men).. whether there was a murder or not I'm not sure, if there was then maybe Sarah's craziness actually led her to murder him out of jealousy of her other personality.

At the end the real "Julie" is shown and she's not the same person as the Julie at the house, so we know that the Julie at the house was either: somebody pretending to be his daughter for free room and board, or a figment of Sarah's imagination. For all we know Sarah could've been in the house alone the entire time, never even sleeping with any men, and imagined the whole story while staring at the empty swimming pool.

..or at least I think so lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXVnoEAWNN4

[–] sunznc 12 years ago

I think someone had mentioned that the entire story is in fact the book that Sarah is working on.
That makes sense.

[–] Scarlett-Lili 12 years ago

Here is what confuses me; on the dvd you can watch deleted scenes. John (the editor) says over the phone, "the new story isn't about my daughter is it?" Sarah tells him no. So, Julie does indeed exist.

Yeah, Julie does exist indeed. But she's not the Julie we see during the whole movie - she's not the Julie played by Ludivine Sagnier. We see the real Julie in the scene in London at the end, coming to see her father John (and played by another actress, looking younger and more "innocent"). Then we see her again in the last scene, at the house in France, standing by the swimming pool and waving at Sarah (and then we see exactly the same scene with Ludivine Sagnier).

So we can assume that the real Julie probably spent some time at the house, and that Sarah did meet her there (which would explain John's question "Is it about my daughter ?"), but she had nothing in common with the Ludivine Sagnier-Julie. That was a fictional character Sarah created, and her whole personality, the murder story, her mother's book etc, was her imagination.

.................
"You know, this is - excuse me - a damn fine cup of coffee."

[–] saturnjwl 12 years ago

Ozon has given no hint in interviews that julia was staying at the home in France at the same time as Sarah...and the next to last scene of the movie specifically implied the two had never met.

It seems this scene was deleted for a reason: to avoid the confusion shown in this thread. Julie was inspired by Julia, yes, but the film gives no hint that the former was present during Sarah's stay.

[–] paleolith 12 years ago

John (the editor) says over the phone, "the new story isn't about my daughter is it?" Sarah tells him no. So, Julie does indeed exist.

As the previous poster pointed out, scenes get deleted for a reason. Most movies are not thought out totally in advance, though most are (for example) thought out much more than Robert Altman's films. The story we see is the movie that gets released, not the parts that were deleted along the way. Deleted scenes are like chapters that a novel author put in the fire.

And anyway, even accepting that Sarah might have told John that the book isn't about his daughter, doesn't mean that Julie is real and not just a character in Sarah's book. If Sarah invented the character of Julie, she would have been totally justified in telling John the book isn't about his daughter. That her plot is very loosely organized around the real life situation doesn't make it "about" the real life characters.

Edward

[–] saturnjwl 12 years ago

If Sarah invented the character of Julie, she would have been totally justified in telling John the book isn't about his daughter.

Exactly. Or the phone conversation, like many parts of the film, could have been intended to be perceived as having been 'imagined' by Sarah. In any case it would have been very confusing, had that conversation wound up in the final cut.

[–] Arctic_Wizard 11 years ago

My undestanding is that Sarah is aware of John having a daughter named Julie and - on her way to France - imagined Julie turning up at the house unexpected thus triggering the inspiration of her novel. What we're seeing is what Sarah is writing and the Ludvine-played-Julie is what Sarah imagines her to be, based on the perhaps limited knowledge she has gained from John. When Sarah sees the real Julie at the end, her smile is her thinking 'so that's Julie'.

I could be wrong. But that's my interpretation.

"Milk's gone up. 49p a pint"

[–] balducci2 11 years ago

We were told in the movie (by Julie) that John has a wife and family in London. I can well see how he might have an English daughter named Julia, and a French one named Julie. So it may be that the one daughter was with Sarah in France, and the other was in London. At the end, perhaps Sarah was bemused at how different the daughters were and that John had named them alike.

But I really don't know what we are meant to think.

[–] Brookic0 11 years ago

What I don't understand is IF Sara knows she made up a version of Julie then why did she give John an autographed book for his daughter? This was one mind bending story!

[–] Arctic_Wizard 11 years ago

Because John did have a daughter, Sarah just hadn't met her.

"Miki says I've got the best right hand in London"

[–] saturnjwl 11 years ago

Giving him a copy to give to his daughter isn't that strange, really. Julie existed in Sarah's mind and was inspired by Julia, so in a way Sarah felt that the story came from Julia. And when Sarah says 'there are some things you couldn't tell me' to John I think she was just being cryptic, especially as it seems that the two had some sort of close relationship and she'd partly written Swimming Pool out of her feelings of being jilted by him.

[–] walt2 11 years ago

I've seen the movie twice and only thing I figured out is that I want to spend the night Ludivine Sagnier!

[–] tronquito 11 years ago

ok, Walt 2, I am with you on this one

[–] sunznc 11 years ago

I laughed at this but I understand!

[–] plumlogan 11 years ago

You can't include information from deleted scenes often a story starts one way, then changed, edited, and new scenes are filmed after for a different arc. Taking the deleted scenes into account would be a mistake.