Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
Set in a magnificent villa near a sun-drenched St. Tropez, lovers Jean-Paul and Marianne are spending a happy, lazy summer holiday. Their only concern is to gratify their mutual passion - until the day when Marianne invites her former lover and his beautiful teenage daughter to spend a few days with them. From the first moment, a certain uneasiness and tension begin to develop between the four, which soon escalates in a dangerous love-game.
This 1969 French thriller benefits enormously from its cast — Romy Schneider, Alain Delon, Maurice Ronet, and Jane Birkin are all magnetic, creating an almost unbearable tension around the villa's pool. The sun-bleached St. Tropez cinematography is genuinely gorgeous, capturing erotic languor and latent violence with equal skill. The plot is a competent but somewhat familiar quadrangle-of-desire structure — the slow-burn jealousy and power games are effective but not wholly original. Novelty is moderate: the film belongs to a recognizable late-60s European sensual thriller tradition, though it executes it with style. The ending resolves the tensions adequately but feels slightly rushed and conventional compared to the careful build-up.