I liked this film more than I thought I would. Perhaps this was because the last Polanski film I saw was REPULSION--a technically well-made but repulsive film (that few average people would ever want to see). It is a very simple story with only three characters but manages, somehow, not to bore the viewer or give in to what is expected. For example, when the couple met the hitchhiker, I expected the old cliché of the "psychotic drifter" who would ultimately terrorize and/or kill them. But, as the film unfolded, I kept waiting and waiting and waiting and he never dismembered or terrorized them at all. In fact, one of the OTHER main characters turned out to be the jerk! Now that's interesting.
Why not an even higher score? Well, the ending of the movie just didn't make sense. The nasty husband jumped overboard to try and rescue the drifter but the husband appears to have drowned. BUT, when the wife and drifter take the sailboat back to shore, the nasty husband meets the boat!!! How could this have happened unless maybe there was a submarine in the lake that rescued him?! My daughter thinks maybe he could walk on water, but that's a pretty rare occurrence. This is a pretty big mistake, now that I think about it--and it's a shame since the rest of the movie is so good.
ADDENDUM--I received a message on IMDb from Chris-Krzysztof indicating that this was NOT the way the film ended. His post is given below:
"I guess you missed something in the subtitles or there was something "lost in translation". After having searched the boy for some time the couple thinks he had drowned, they have a fight and when the husband disappears, he's not searching the boy anymore, but he's swimming to the shore to a police station to confess what happened (mostly to prove his wife he's not a coward). In the morning, they meet at the shore (the husband of course didn't have enough courage to go the police, he's making excuses that it was in the night, he was almost naked, couldn't get into the car - the keys were on the yacht). When they leave the marina, he stops the car at the crossroads, where we can see a sign (not sure if it was translated) "Do posterunku MILICJI obywatelskiej, 10 km" (To the POLICE station, 10 km). And the car remains there, so we don't know which way he chooses ... "
As I responded to him, in the version I saw, this is not how the ending was translated. Considering I think Chris speaks Polish, I am sure he is right. However, many older films exist in multiple versions and translations and I think the version I saw was mistranslated. As a result, I am adding this addendum to clarify things.
Why not an even higher score? Well, the ending of the movie just didn't make sense. The nasty husband jumped overboard to try and rescue the drifter but the husband appears to have drowned. BUT, when the wife and drifter take the sailboat back to shore, the nasty husband meets the boat!!! How could this have happened unless maybe there was a submarine in the lake that rescued him?! My daughter thinks maybe he could walk on water, but that's a pretty rare occurrence. This is a pretty big mistake, now that I think about it--and it's a shame since the rest of the movie is so good.
ADDENDUM--I received a message on IMDb from Chris-Krzysztof indicating that this was NOT the way the film ended. His post is given below:
"I guess you missed something in the subtitles or there was something "lost in translation". After having searched the boy for some time the couple thinks he had drowned, they have a fight and when the husband disappears, he's not searching the boy anymore, but he's swimming to the shore to a police station to confess what happened (mostly to prove his wife he's not a coward). In the morning, they meet at the shore (the husband of course didn't have enough courage to go the police, he's making excuses that it was in the night, he was almost naked, couldn't get into the car - the keys were on the yacht). When they leave the marina, he stops the car at the crossroads, where we can see a sign (not sure if it was translated) "Do posterunku MILICJI obywatelskiej, 10 km" (To the POLICE station, 10 km). And the car remains there, so we don't know which way he chooses ... "
As I responded to him, in the version I saw, this is not how the ending was translated. Considering I think Chris speaks Polish, I am sure he is right. However, many older films exist in multiple versions and translations and I think the version I saw was mistranslated. As a result, I am adding this addendum to clarify things.