A Very French Thriller
Bruce Von Stiers
Your mom is going out of town for several days. You've got the place to yourself. You invite your boyfriend to stay with you. Seems perfect, right? But what if there's an ex-boyfriend who might be lurking around? And what if that ex might be jealous? And what if that ex is unstable and possibly homicidal?
Maude is a store clerk, and Jeremy is a law student. They've been together for a while and seem very happy. Jeremy is staying with Maude while her mom, Wanda, is away for several days. Maude details her days in a diary, including the time that she and Jeremy are spending together. These diary entries play a significant role later in the film.
Things are going well with the couple's time together. That is, until some strange things start happening. There are phone calls with nobody on the other end. Maude feels like someone is watching them. And a baseball bat that she was teasing Jeremy with seems to have disappeared.
The couple's lives take a sideways turn when Felix, Maude's ex shows up. He ingratiates himself into the domestic scene, apparently unaware that Maude and Jeremy are a couple. But with a twist that I didn't see coming, the story completely moves away from where I thought it was going.
Sorry, this will be a bit of a spoiler here. You see, there is a murder. After the murder, Felix and Jeremy flee the area. But all is not what it sees with that either.
There is some kind of symbolism in the context of the film. Every main character has their own scene where they are in some kind of filmy silk garment, splayed out either on top of water or on top of the ground.
Maude had chosen a water lily for the cover of her diary. This is symbolic because the flower supposedly represents indifference. And per one of the characters introduced later in the film, if your symbol is the water lily, you are incapable of love.
Juline Thibaut starred as Maude. She appeared in an episode of Alex Hugo and an episode of The Intern. Thomas Lesserteur was Jeremy. He co-starred in the short comedy Cappuccino. And Guerric Nivelon was Felix.
Niko played Charel, a cab driver who helps out Felix and Jeremy. Florence Bonanno played Wanda, Maude's mom. Also appearing in the film were David Abad, Christophe Sartinano and Addolphe Cappelletti.
The film was directed by Julien Botzanowski. He was the director of Dear Ed and Rutabaga. The cinematographer was Romain Reboul. He's worked on several music videos and the feature film, If You Saw His Heart.
The film was a very good psychological thriller. The only problem I had with it, was that being a French film, the dialog was entirely in French. There were English subtitles, which was great, but I had to pay very close attention to them to understand what was going on with the characters.
Water Lily, or Nenuphar, won the Best Foreign Film award at the recent 2024 Santa Clarita International Film Festival.
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© 2025 Bruce E Von Stiers