Product Details

• Actors: Johan Libéreau, Salomé Stévenin, Florence Thomassin, Jean-Philippe Écoffey, Claire Nebout
• Directors: Antony Cordier
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), French (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Picture This, Breaking Glass Pictures
• DVD Release Date: December 14, 2010
• Run Time: 102 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000FNNHXY
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #74,870 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Cold Showers" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Studio: Wolfe Video Release Date: 07/25/2006 Run time: 102 minutes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mispromoted, August 23, 2006

By 

Richard Nelson (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cold Showers (DVD)

It's a sign of desperation on the part of the producers that this movie is being promoted as gay cinema. Yes, there is a brief (and darkly-filmed) threesome at the heart of the movie, and it's of the 2M+1F variety. But otherwise there isn't the faintest trace of "gay" in this movie, only a young man confused about his place in the world and driven to desperate acts, from losing more than 15 pounds on a crash diet to get into a lower judo weight class to sharing his girlfriend with a richer teammate to an act of violence that mars the last ten minutes.

With that said, there is a halfway-decent plot here; if you like the "disaffected teenage male" strain of French cinema you may enjoy this. But if you've come for either a gay coming-of-age movie or for the sort of titillation common to most movies promoted specifically to a gay audience, check out Grande Ecole or Latter Days instead.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ménage a Trois: Coming of Age Under the Microscope, August 11, 2006

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cold Showers (DVD)

'Douches froides' ('Cold Showers') is a film by Antony Cordier that has been marketed in a strange way: the projected audience was supposedly the gay audience, but aside from brief frontal nudity in an innocuous gym shower room there is nothing 'gay' about this movie. Instead COLD SHOWERS is an examination of class, sport, experimentation, and emotional borderlines that are at once fascinating and frustrating.

Mickael (Johan Libereau) is from a poor working class family - his father Gerard (Jean-Philippe Ecoffey) is a boozer taxi cab driver who lost his license as a result of a DUI, and his mother Annie (Florence Thomassin) is a cleaning woman in the high school gym: they live on the edge of poverty. Not a great student, Mickael excels in judo and his life is focused on his sport and on his girlfriend Vanessa (Salome Stevenin). One of Mickael's teammates Clement (Pierre Perrier) is from a wealthy family: his father Louis Steiner (Aurelien Recoing) is confined to a wheelchair and his mother Mathilde (Claire Nebout) is a woman of the world and society. Louis decides to sponsor the judo team, buys them outfits, and asks Mickael to work with Clement to perfect his technique and prepare the judo team for a French championship.

Mickael and Clement relate well and while Mickael is a winning player, Clement is smarter and understands the intrinsic rules of the game better. An incident occurs that forces Mickael to take the position of a wounded mate and in doing so he must lose 8 kilos to qualify for the championship team. The struggle to lose weight (his body is already perfect) places stress on both Mickael and his family and teammates. Mickael and Vanessa include Clement in their camaraderie, a situation which evolves into a ménage a trois as the three have sex in the after hours gym. Vanessa reacts as though this is the greatest physical feeling ever, Clement is smitten, and Mickael has troubling doubts. When the three decide to try it again in a hotel room Mickael is so conflicted that he does not join the other two, only listening to their cavorting in the bathtub feeling inferior to the smarter, wealthier Clement. But on the judo side, the team wins the championship and Mickael's delicate sense of self worth is restored for a moment. It is the manner in which the trio of young adolescents resolves their antics that closes the film.

Though the actors are superb and very beautiful to see and hear, the character development is fuzzy and we are left with little understanding or insight as to the each of the key players. The judo action moments are beautifully choreographed and the intimacy scenes are done with taste and fine lighting but with little passion conveyed. Though we want to identify with Mickael and his methods of confronting his coming of age, there just isn't enough character motivation to make that transference entirely successful. This film feels like two movies: a judo team's antics and a class-crossed ménage a trois. Beautiful to watch, but the script could have been more carefully constructed. Grady Harp, August 06

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a very pleasant movie, June 19, 2007

By 

Akira Touya (Berlin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cold Showers (DVD)

intense in a smooth way, mildly erotic. if you have heard it was "gay cinema" it is not. but even if that is what you were hoping for you should still watch this film. it is simply a great movie. and the french language makes it sultry throughout.