An easy rule of thumb in judging films is that, as soon as Americans and Brits shout "It's French!" or "Pretentious" about it, you know that it's a good film. Furthermore, but not wholly related, judging by the calls of 'paedohphile film!' on this board, there seem to be a lot of anglophones who promptly associate "swimming young girls" with paedohphiliac sex. Of course, that says a lot about them, and their society's repressed and warped view upon the subject. Mostly it is just very sad. Since the film is very low on physical touching, (the youngest girl wants to kuddle with the oldest, but gets told off with a terse: "That is forbidden"), any sexual thought that arises is purely in the mind of the viewer.
When you're used to a diet of MTV style editing, where the image changes every 0.3 seconds (fact), or to a constant wallpaper of music for airports during any movie, (extreme case: Grey's Anatomy, where the sung words are sometimes as loud as the dialogue) then yeah, this movie might seem slow or boring.
The film is an obvious metaphor of coming-of-age, and not a big plot it has. So what? If Hollywood wants to make films which are basically radio-soaps, with pictures, then that's a choice, not a standard of film. The narrative aspect of film is heavily dominating the visual aspect these days, which is sad. If you want a story, read a book! Oh wait, Americans can't read ...
I see that a lot of the negative comments here come from males. The lack of any male part in the film might have something to do with that.
