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The well-acted Girls Can't Swim is a sensitive depiction of two girls' coming-of-age.
All Critics (34) | Top Critics (17) | Fresh (24) | Rotten (10)
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. Sep 30, 2002 | Full Review…
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.
Paul Malcolm
Birot has succeeded in making a movie that has some laughs, low points and high ideals. Aug 20, 2002 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…
Birot has succeeded in making a movie that has some laughs, low points and high ideals.
Jonathan Curiel
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. Aug 16, 2002 | Rating: 3/4
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.
John Hartl
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. Aug 9, 2002 | Rating: 2/4 | Full Review…
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.
Roger Ebert
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. Aug 8, 2002 | Rating: 2.5/4
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.
Loren King
Compelling, beautifully photographed French import. Aug 1, 2002 | Rating: 3/4
Compelling, beautifully photographed French import.
Glenn Lovell
An overly melodramatic but somewhat insightful French coming-of-age film ... Jan 31, 2003 | Rating: C+ | Full Review…
An overly melodramatic but somewhat insightful French coming-of-age film ...
Dennis Schwartz
The heedless impetuousness of youth is on full, irritating display in [this] meandering and pointless French coming-of-age import from writer-director Anne-Sophie Birot. Aug 27, 2002 | Rating: D | Full Review…
The heedless impetuousness of youth is on full, irritating display in [this] meandering and pointless French coming-of-age import from writer-director Anne-Sophie Birot.
Brent Simon
...a well-observed and disturbing little movie Aug 23, 2002 | Rating: B-
...a well-observed and disturbing little movie
Philip Martin
The story ultimately takes hold and grips hard. Aug 15, 2002 | Rating: B | Full Review…
The story ultimately takes hold and grips hard.
Paula Nechak
For a long time the film succeeds with its dark, delicate treatment of these characters and its unerring respect for them. Aug 2, 2002 | Rating: 2.5/4 | Full Review…
For a long time the film succeeds with its dark, delicate treatment of these characters and its unerring respect for them.
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Feels less like it's about teenagers, than it was written by teenagers. May 10, 2002 | Full Review…
Feels less like it's about teenagers, than it was written by teenagers.
Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece
Two best friends that have been separated look forward to spending the summer together. All's not as well as it first appears though. Gwen is a confused girl who uses her sexuality to embrace some sort of acceptance missing from her mother and father. Lise is emotionally repressed, even being told not to cry after her father's death. It's a film that captures those awkward moments of youth, friends one minute and then arguing the next, but never really explores them. The film keeps the audience interested with the different twists and turns but mostly it is how each character deals with situations that become the most exciting part. Gwen's father is the most conflicted of all characters as he drunkenly tries to do what is right for his family and get in his estranged wifes good books once again. At the same time he is also trying to be a strict father to a promiscuous daughter and a father figure to a girl who has lost her own. Not everybody, but certainly for those who like slightly dark and awkward cinema.
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