A film about a female swimmer was Oscar-nominated this past year. It was called Nyad (2023). In it, Annette Bening played a 60-year-old woman who decided to swim from Cuba to Florida in 2013 crossing the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of over 100 miles. This film could be seen as a spiritual prequel to Nyad. This film is about a 20-year-old woman who decided to swim from France to England in 1926 crossing the English Channel, a distance of over 20 miles. She was the sixth person to do so. She was the third American to do so. She was the second person to do so, starting from France and heading north. She was finally the first woman to do so and she broke the time record, becoming the fastest person to do so.
If you watched Nyad, there is a lot of similarities here. However, when it comes to sports films or films about athletes, there are obvious things to expect. If you watched a film about a football player or a basketball player, there will be similarities with previous titles involving those kinds of athletes. There are so few films made about swimmers, particularly marathon swimmers, that the fact we have two within half a year of each other could make this film feel derivative of Nyad. Yet, I feel this film is more in conversation, even though there are so many beats that are the same. Nyad was more about ageism, whereas this one is about sexism. Nyad was more about one woman trying to prove something for herself, whereas this film is about one woman trying to prove something for all girls and the world. Nyad was about a woman taking something, whereas this film felt like a woman giving something.
Daisey Ridley (Murder on the Orient Express and Star Wars: The Force Awakens) stars as Gertrude Ederle or Trudy, the daughter of German immigrants. Her father owns a butcher shop, which he opened prior to World War I. When Trudy was a girl, she nearly died after a bout with measles. Even at a young age, she was passionate about being in the water and competing in races. She had the support of her mother, but her father had a lot of old-world values and didn't think women should participate in sports but rather be wives and mothers. A large chunk of the film is Trudy battling those old-world values. She's fighting gender stereotypes being a bit of a tomboy.
Tilda Cobham-Hervey (Hotel Mumbai and 52 Tuesdays) co-stars as Margaret Ederle or Meg, the older sister of Trudy. She's also interested in competitive swimming. The two start out similarly to the sisters in King Richard (2021), but eventually it gets to a point where one sister begins to outshine the other. Trudy becomes the Venus Williams of the two. This has an effect on their relationship and the two of them have to navigate the dynamics. This film gives us more of that navigation than King Richard. The focus here is more on the sisters than that Will Smith Oscar-winner.
The tennis action was more engaging in King Richard than the swimming action is here. When it comes to the difficulty of the swimming, Nyad did a better job than this film. Bening gives a better performance, but Nyad is meant to be a more demanding feat than here. That being said, director Joachim Rønning mounts a very handsome production that is highly effective in its rousing conclusion. It might be the most inspirational film of the year so far.
Shout-out to the supporting cast, which is all very strong here. Jeanette Hain (Never Look Away and The Reader) plays Trudy's mother. She's a stubborn, German woman who has no trouble standing up to anyone including equally tough or tougher men. Kim Bodnia (Killing Eve and The Witcher) plays Trudy's father, a man who is stuck in his old-world values and traditional gender roles, but who clearly loves his daughter. Sian Clifford (Chevalier and Fleabag) plays Charlotte Epstein, the swim trainer who coached Trudy in New York and helped her get to the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. Stephen Graham (Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) rounds out the cast as Bill Burgess, a British expat living in France who was a medalist at the Paris 1900 Summer Olympics. Burgess was the second person to swim the English Channel and apparently is a person who likes to swim in the nude. He's probably one of the most fun characters here.
Finally, Alexander Karim is Afro-Swedish actor who first caught my attention in the TV series Tyrant (2014). He's such a captivating actor, but he's credited as playing Ishak, a swimmer that Trudy meets in France who's also trying to cross the English Channel. His presence there is striking because he's among an ethnically diverse group, diverse not by gender but by race. If one knows history, then one knows that Pauline Jackson in 1928 attempted to be the first Black person to cross the English Channel and that Charles Chapman aka "Charlie the Tuna" in 1981 became the first Black person actually to do so. Just as Trudy being the first woman to do so is a big deal. The first Black person to do so would also be a big deal, particularly given how Black people were prevented from swimming as much or more than White women. The film not commenting upon that was disappointing but a fleeting critique for an otherwise very well done film.
Rated PG for some language and partial nudity.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 9 mins.
Available on Disney +.
