Water Child (1995) User Reviews

A sad but touching story...

[Savant · 10/10 · 29 July 2000]

I just saw this film on CBC in Canada, and was pleasantly surprised at the depth and emotion that it was able to put across. This movie was made originally in French, and was subtitled in English.

The film is a story about a 20 year old male (Emile) who has the mental capacity of a 5 year old. He is involved in a plane crash that strands him along with a 12 year old girl (Cendrine)on a island off the Bahamas for 49 days. What should be noted is that Emile always speaks about himself in the third person, which can be confusing if you don't catch onto this early on.

This movie starts after they have rescued, and is told in a retrospective, mainly from the detailed diary of the 12 year old girl as initially read by Emile's father.

What is being told here is not the aspects of being stranded on the island, but instead the relationship between these two people. Cendrine, on the cusp of puberty, has to change from seeing Emile as a 'retard' if she wishes to live with him on this island. Emile on the other hand, doesn't really see or reciprocate what Cendrine is feeling, since he doesn't have the capacity.

Be forewarned, overall this is a sad movie. There is a bit of levity at one point, but overall there isn't much happiness in this film. I don't believe that every film has to have a happy ending, and since the movie starts with both main characters in the hospital, you get the picture things aren't going well.

I found the musical score quite compelling, and it did well to draw you deeper into this movie. It's a great movie to watch in a dark and quiet environment.

Personally I would have preferred if the retrospective of the 2 of them on the island wasn't cut up as much by switching back to what the father is thinking/doing, but overall that was a minor issue for me.

This movie was well acted and touching, and well worth watching.

Rather Uncompelling Drama, Failing To Bring Its Themes Full Circle

[Brakathor · 3/10 · 5 August 2010]

These types of films involving castaways who are somehow stranded on an island are always interesting to look into, to see what those involved came up with, simply because they're so formulaic. This film is definitely no different, largely in part due to the fact that we don't see the moments building up to the accident or the accident itself, which would by far have added to the film, though at least the back story of Emil is well developed. All we see is Emil hauling Sendrine to a life raft where lies only the body of a lifeless fat man in a rather unconvincing scene. The idea that a life raft would have been freed by someone after the accident but no one aside from one man who conveniently happened to suddenly drop dead from who knows what, JUST after the accident which is clearly when Emil and Sendrine would have had to crawl aboard it, is ridiculously contrived in order to have them be the only two from the accident to be washed on shore of the island.

This film clearly had a low budget which is no surprise for a Canadian film. However what I find makes the film mediocre is how the drama is developed. We do see a bit of chemistry between the two characters but ultimately the screenplay was very poorly conceived as it doesn't really put the plot to full effect and the end result is the story feels very aloof especially in how it uses the narration of Sendrine presumably from her diary, although we never actually see her write in it, rather than actually developing more of what the characters are thinking and feeling through their interactions.

They interact basically on a "pet and master" sort of level which makes it feel very contrived how Sendrine eventually grows to love Emil in a big way. Understandably Emil is mentally retarded and will not interact with people normally, but even his character comes across as somewhat of a caricature, though still by no means laughably so. Chiefly, when trying to portray a mentally handicapped individual and having them constantly refer to themselves in the third person for example, this is something you only need to do as a last resort if the actors are unable to fully portray a mentally handicapped individual without the use of gimmicks, which is something you get in a lot of films to be honest.

In terms of Sendrine and Emils relationship, I think the biggest mistake was to try to develop it into a sexual relationship when they clearly weren't prepared to follow through with it. I'm not even sure what happened. Essentially, they started off hugging, both fully clothed, and she began rubbing up against him in a sexual manner, clearly in no position to be engaging in sexual relations, then they stop, the characters react strangely to this, and the result is utter confusion. Did they have sex? Did Sendrine get pregnant? All I know is women cannot get pregnant from sitting on toilet seats and the like. Clearly they had to take some precautions with this type of scene, but to me, the subject being controversial in no way alters the fact that any film afraid of its own subject is ultimately a failure, whatever the subject is. As bad as the "sex" scene itself is the buildup. There IS no real relational buildup to it, other than a lifeless diary quotation. It just happens abruptly, and seemed very "tacked on" Ultimately they would have done better to work on developing a stronger sense of "mother/son" type of relationship, which actually was successful to a degree.

Essentially, all the above points are reasons why the film is O.K. but by no means great. It is a low budget film, the director was clearly out of his depth, and despite the actors being decent, they don't have much of a script to work with, which is essential for any film which is carried solely by 2 characters. Some people may enjoy this film, but I found it ultimately disappointing and laughable in places, which is unfortunate because the premise had potential.