Ok, so I just finished watching Swimming Pool which, like other films before it has a twist ending in which you realize that the past 100+ minutes might have been false. I did not enjoy this twist, while with the Usual Suspects (a film which I do still have issues with), you always feel like you are being manipulated, I felt that Swimming Pool doesn't accomplish the same feeling. For those not in the know and don't care about spoilers, Swimming Pool is the tale of an author who can't concentrate on writing, who decides to take a vacation in France, which is interrupted by the sex-loving daughter of her publisher. When the daughter kills a man who won't have sex with her, the story turns into a very similar looking murder mystery than that of the authors books. Unfortunately you realize that the character of the daughter is fake and that for the past hour and a half we have been watching the author write her book.
The final twist is what I don't like about this film, it loses the intrigue that the authors life might have turned into one of her own books and that she might just reveal it all through her passion (obsession?) for writing (the author, as it is hinted at might be writing the story fo her publisher's secret life, which would include this daughter and the murder). To me, this is so much more interesting than the final twist, which (cleverly) reveals that the past hour and a half never happened. I find it so much more interesting if the writer is actually so obsessed with her stories that, although she helped the daughter, she couldn't help writing the story.
Anyway, just some thoughts on what doesn't work in the cleverly executed twist of Swimming Pool. Dont' get me wrong it's a much better film than The Usual Suspects, which uses the same idea, but since part 1 of the usual suspects I could feel that twist coming. Not in Swimming Pool, I found myself more dissapointed that surprised.