The film's intimate camera work and searing performances pull us deep into the girls' confusion and pain as they struggle tragically to comprehend the chasm of knowledge that's opened between them.
Overview
Gwen is a teenager living in a small coastal town. Lise is her best friend, a city girl who comes every year with her family to spend the summer. This year things are different though; at first Lise might not come at all, and when she does it is obvious that Gwen grew up faster than she did.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
Birot has succeeded in making a movie that has some laughs, low points and high ideals.
Until its final minutes this is a perceptive study of two families in crisis -- and of two girls whose friendship is severely tested by bad luck and their own immaturity.
I felt sad for Lise not so much because of what happens as because she was captured by this movie when she obviously belongs in something lighter and sunnier, by Rohmer, for example.
Despite its shortcomings, Girls Can't Swim represents an engaging and intimate first feature by a talented director to watch, and it's a worthy entry in the French coming-of-age genre.
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