Fear of Water

Fear of Water is a coming of age romance. That’s a particularly common genre for WLW films. So while there are some genres of WLW films where I could celebrate of film of Fear of Water’s quality (which is fine, but not great), this isn’t one of them. Being as common a story as it is, Fear of Water needs to be better than just okay to stand out as a queer coming of age film.

The film’s lead character is Eleanor, a girl from an affluent family who has returned from boarding school for the summer. Eleanor’s father is constantly away for work so her grandmother cares for her. Recently, a block of estates have been put up around the corner from their house. This means there’s now an unsavoury, lower class community within walking distance of Eleanor. Well, grandma dies in the first handful of minutes. So Eleanor’s father reluctantly reenters the picture. But even when he’s physically there, he’s a shit dad. Luckily, Eleanor quickly bonds with Alexia, a girl who lives on the estates.

Fear of Water straight up doesn’t have enough content for an hour and 40 minute movie. This movie is very slow to get going and not much happens in the first half. It does get stronger in the second half which just reaffirms my view that it should’ve been a short film. The film seems to know this. There’s lots of extended scenes of nothing that pad out the movie set to a soundtrack. This over reliance on music makes it seem like the filmmaker doesn’t have enough faith in their leads and the story they’re telling to just let the actions happen without musical backing. And they’re sort of right. The movie is slow and the music scenes are generally pointless. Sadly, the music didn’t really elevate my opinion of the scenes or the film as a whole.

The main theme of Fear of Water and the lead character’s relationship is wealth inequality. Eleanor is rich and Alexia poor. The film seems to want to tell the story that two people from very different lives can both have problems and both connect on a deep level. Frankly, that’s a bit basic. It’s been done and been done better. Wealth inequality can certainly be an interesting framework but as it’s used in this movie, it feels more like window dressing. There’s no specific hard-hitting commentary on what it’s like being poor other than it’s generally worse than being rich.

Part of the problem is the choice of main character. The film goes out of its way to show that both the girls have problems in their lives but Alexia definitely has more problems. There’s a bit of poor little rich girl to the film. It focuses more on Eleanor, who obviously has life problems and only sporadically focuses on Alexia, who has many of the same problems as Eleanor plus additional problems relating to not being wealthy. This is not helped by the fact that Chloe Partridge, who plays Eleanor is the weaker actress. By contrast, Lily Loveless plays Alexia. When she was in Skins, Loveless proved she can absolutely carry an emotional, dramatic lesbian plot line for multiple episodes across two seasons. The choice to not make her the lead in this was a mistake.

Actual queerness or romance in the film is minimal. Alexia’s mother calls her a lesbian as an insult a couple times and the girls share one kiss. After this kiss Alexia tells Eleanor that it’s alright and that she knows. It’s never said explicitly what Alexia “knows”, but the the subtext is clear. Yet after this, there is never another onscreen kiss or suggestion their friendship has turned to romance. They continue to have a very emotionally intimate, close friendship but one or both parties seem to have decided not to explore a romantic angle. That’s obviously fine and all. Not every relationship should be romantic. But they are already so close so it is basically a romance without kissing. And as someone who’s watching this for queer content, I obviously would have preferred somewhat more romance or at least a more outright discussion on the nature of their relationship.

Fear of Water is okay. It has good camera work, realistic teenagers and Lily Loveless gives a good performance. But as I mentioned at the top of this review, that’s not enough good things to stand out in a genre as crowded as queer teen coming of age stories. Fear of Water needed some edge, some better pacing and some stronger emotional beats to stand out. As far as the existing product, it’s just fine. While there are worse coming of age films, that doesn’t mean Fear of Water deserves a recommendation for being mildly competent.

Overall rating: 5.1/10

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