Fear of water is a genuine story of two girls with different social class, who become friends. Yes you see the struggles of both lives but I do not know how this movie can be classed as a lesbian film.. I for one adore lily loveless and to hear she was playing gay on screen again was exciting. Well hold on before we get to excited , not once did she say so and the one kiss given to her by Eleanor she brushed off . I mean come on ... Why?? If this film was truly about a friendship blossoming and coming of age then sorry but you would want to see that relationship take the next step.. I personally don't see it. All I see is two girls from different background become friends nothing more.. Their could have been so many points to develop that relationship and as a viewer you were waiting constantly for a climax that never came !! So now I feel as though the movie isn't complete and left too many unanswered questions .. A shame as I personally was looking forward to the movies story and yes there story is good it still only remains a story about friendship ..
Add a Review
-
kevan-kirk1 April 2016
-
Isvind896 January 2016I had the pleasure of watching this film last night. It was a nice down-to-earth depiction of adolescence, awakening and responsibilities. However, it left me wanting more. The story was nice and real but at the same time baiting and not going where all the indicators pointed. The ending also felt anti-climactic. No real purpose to tie the knot of the film and its story.
Even though I can find plot holes and such I still enjoyed it. Great acting from Lily Loveless and the rest of the cast.The visual pictures where slow and establishing mixed with fast montages giving the film a nice tempo with mixed effect. -
The movie itself takes a while for it to get going but once it does it's pretty good. However when it does it going it leaves a ton of unanswered questions. After the kiss they really don't show much of anything but a strong friendship. As a viewer you wait and wait for the friendship to actually progress since you know for a fact Alexia is a lesbian. Then there is the overnight boat scene which leave us wondering what happened and there is no indication at all anything did happen. In the end something amazing happens showing the strong friendship of the girls which is nice and I'd say overall it's a nice movie to watch when there is nothing else to watch. The music in the film I really liked but can't seem to find it anywhere online. I love the song while they are at the playground. Anyone know this song?
-
How this film is labeled as 'LGBT' and a romance is beyond me. It's only about friendship and in the coming-of-age genre. The premise: girl from privileged upbringing and girl from wrong side of the tracks become friends and deal with life over a particular summer in the U.K. That's it.
The issues: 1. The movie is slow, unbearably so. Montages of activity are fine, but not after the thousandth time set to an overly-sappy soundtrack. 2. The soundtrack is loud and almost constant, and as mentioned before, overly sappy and just inappropriate for the film as a whole. 3. There are supposed to be touching scenes, but you never really develop much interest in the characters because the pacing is just way to slow. There just isn't any energy in this film, and the development isn't great, so when characters become tearful, it's hard to feel anything as a viewer but boredom and desire for the plot to move along. I've watched many foreign and/or European films that are understated and well-crafted, but this one misses the mark completely. I spent most of the film wishing it would end or something interesting would gappen. It didn't. In fact, in moments when you think a romance will develop, it doesn't.
Not worth the 100 minutes of your time, honestly. -
Red-12524 October 2014Fear of Water (2014) was directed by Kate Lane. The basic premise isn't new--girl from the wrong side of the tracks meets girl from the right side of the tracks. However, the premise is carried out very well, and the acting is excellent.
Both Alexia (the rich girl, played by Lily Loveless) and Eleanor (the poor girl, played by Chloe Partridge) appear to be capable and caring. Each girl has her own problems--Alexia's mother is gone, and her grandmother dies on the day after she returns from school for summer vacation.
Eleanor has an out-of-work disabled father and the mother from hell. Eleanor is dealing pot, and apparently harder drugs as well.
Still, their friendship appears genuine, and you can't help wanting that relationship, and their lives, to succeed.
I found the ending of movie to be somewhat contrived. Also, you can tell that Kate Lane is a new director--she hasn't learned how to give us a sense of location. We move from the mean streets to the mansion, to the council flats to a beautiful idyllic lake to an abandoned--but immaculate--playground almost by magic. We viewers need some sense of how we got from A to B and back. She's a good director, and I'm sure she'll learn how to manage this.
This film will probably work a little better on a large screen, but it will be OK on DVD. We saw it at the Little Theatre as part of the laudable Rochester ImageOut LGBT Film Festival. -
stevan-k-holt30 April 2018In film, the audience is often whisked away into a world that is fanciful and themed and is taken behind the curtain to where the story takes place---as observers peering through a window. Fear of Water is not that at all. In fact, I think it was the intention of the Director, Kate Lane, to let the story sort of tell itself via glimpses, signals and road signs with us, the audience, filling in blanks along the way. That technique does, to some extent, take away the meat from the table, but hey, to my surprise, I have enjoyed many a vegetarian meal and gotten up from the table feeling fit instead of bogged down. A thanksgiving feast this was not, but a simple lunch of salad and sandwiches. As we follow our two heroines on their journey of discovery, we see the two mature softly toward becoming adults...Not adults over night or in the click of the fingers, and certainly not entirely into adults, but we catch a snapshot of a few of the moments that will build their future selves and what kind of people they will grow up to be. The magic here is not a complete transformation but a subtle and gentle look at how these two young people gravitate toward each other to heal wounds, fill in the missing flesh and correct the courses that they were inherently upon to a parallel path toward normalcy. As friends? As lovers? you can choose, but if the camera were prying deeper into the story, perhaps we would have learned exactly what did transpire in the row boat one evening. We would have been forced to see the secret that these two lady-childs to women kept from us. It was the binder that cemented their probable life long friendship and who knows if they do not seek each other out later in life to find romance? That is another story. Suffice it to say that if you like films that not only spell it out for you, but reveal the answer to the riddle to you in all of it's cinematic glory, then this is not the movie for you. Conversely, if you want to have a peek into the true innocence of youth as it transforms into pre adulthood, with a special love affair in bloom for color, then this is a film that you will cherish. So the ending is not defined and the sexual tension is not visually released...we know that story from countless other quote /unquote Lesbian films. This is more of a touching and sentimental approach to letting us see the innocence of how two can come together emotionally & sexually without gratuitous nude scenes...well done Ms. Katy Lane.
-
virtualsick12 December 2020The plot in this movie makes no sense and it's so boring.
-
jonniecomet-1420920 December 2020I watched this film on Tubi where it was categorised as 'LBGT' (not my reason for watching it). This is an injustice to the movie because it deserves more than a niche market. It is the story of two girls, each of whom has difficulty finding & keeping friends, who find each other because of the innate decency in themselves. Over the course of the plot - which develops just as you'd like it to, though you fear it won't - they discover that all prejudices and stereotypes become meaningless as you take the time to actually get to know people. Everyone Alexia and Eleanor encounter has problems, which half excuse their oddness and make them deserve human decency and sympathy.
Most meaningfully, the story isn't about lesbian 'awakening' sexuality at all. It's about true friendship and the kind of love that transcends labels. Kate Lane's done a really great job at writing a story and directing a film that's worth more than any pigeonhole category.
I'd recommend this to anyone seeking a youth-oriented film that pushes barriers even as it retains a centre in universal morality and keeps to its core of entertaining and enlightening together.