Naissance Des Pieuvres|Water Lilies

The title of Céline Sciamma’s feature debut refers to the teenage members of a Parisian synchronized-swimming team. Marie (Pauline Acquart), a late-developing 15-year-old, longs to be one of them, so she sidles up to Floriane (Adele Haenel), the voluptuous team captain. But Floriane, like Marie, is marginalized: the other girls are envious and denounce her as a slut. Marie helps Floriane set up assignations with François (Warren Jacquin), a Speedo’d hunk on the boys’ team, and this marriage of convenience deepens into a strange intimacy. Complicating matters is Anne (Louise Blachère), Marie’s ugly-duckling friend, who has a crush on François and is jealous of Marie’s overtures to Floriane. It’s the kind of scenario that Catherine Breillat would have turned into a horror story; Sciamma, however, creates a compassionate study of adolescent turmoil in which the girls achieve a kind of triumph despite their inevitable submission to conformity. French | 85 minutes | Kendall Square