(Jacques Deray / Italy/France/ 1969 / 120 minutes / Cert 12)

This week at the Cube we take up a theme and swim with it, so look forward to a week of swimming pool set films to accompany the first flushes of summer. Kicking off with this stylish and lacksadsical1960s French psychological thriller set in a luxurious holiday villa in St Tropez.

A rich and beautiful young couple, writer Jean-Paul (Alain Delon) and his journalist wife Marianne (Romy Schneider), are holidaying in their idyllic seafront villa when they receive an unexpected visit from their old friend Harry (Maurice Ronet) and his teenage daughter Penelope (Jane Birkin). Over the course of a few days in the oppressive heat old emotions are rekindled and new ones begin to form. The combination of idleness, hot sun, jealousy, alcohol, and sexual tension begin to shimmer and melt, with disastrous consequences.
An expertly crafted slow burning thriller from the sun-baked golden age of overheated but understated emotion.