Synopsis
Set in a magnificent villa near a sun-drenched St. Tropez, lovers Jean-Paul and Marianne are spending a happy, lazy summer holiday. Their only concern is to gratify their mutual passion - until the day when Marianne invites her former lover and his beautiful teenage daughter to spend a few days with them. From the first moment, a certain uneasiness and tension begin to develop between the four, which soon escalates in a dangerous love-game.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Romy SchneiderMarianne
- Alain DelonJean-Paul
- Maurice RonetHarry
- Jane BirkinPenelope
- Paul CrauchetL'inspecteur Lévêque
- Steve EckardtFred
- Maddly BamyLa mulâtre
- Suzie JaspardEmilie
- Thierry ChabertUn ami
- Ruth PriceSinger
Recommendations
- 100
The New York Times
Pretty people behaving poorly in beautiful settings is something we don’t see as much of in cinema as we used to. This is a master class in the subgenre, and one of unusual depth. - 80
Los Angeles Times
The film is never just some glassy exercise in the idly loaded’s languorous cruelty, though. In each magnetic performance (especially Schneider’s), in the sparse but piquant lines from the script co-written with the great, recently departed screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière (working from an Alain Page story), and in Deray’s attention to emotional humidity, lies something resolutely curious about human frailty in relationships. - 80
The Guardian
Erotic languour turns gradually into fear and then horror in this gripping and superbly controlled psychological thriller from 1969. - 80
Time Out
This is a deliciously languid, slinkily unsettling affair. - 80
Total Film
An intriguing forerunner to François Ozon’s Swimming Pool, it’s languidly paced and elegantly lensed, though its prize asset is Delon/ Schneider’s sexual sizzle. - 80
Chicago Reader
Famous in its day for reuniting real-life former lovers Alain Delon and Romy Schneider on-screen, this forgotten 1968 psychological thriller by Jacques Deray deserves to be rediscovered for its darkly sensual story. - 75
Slant Magazine
La Piscine is, more than anything else, a work of vivid sensory delights. - 60
CineVue
With little action taking place for the majority of the film, this slow boiling story is more of an insightful character study than a heart pounding thriller.
