With first-rate performances by two bankable stars and a well-crafted, emotionally honest story line, it's a mystery why this movie blipped so quickly in and out of the theaters.
Swimming Upstream is based on the real-life story of Tony Fingleton, a young Australian swimmer, but the film is much more than a feel-good tale of Tony's aquatic triumphs. It's about the desperate attachments of a dysfunctional family, and in particular, Tony's struggles to win the love and approval of Harold, his emotionally damaged father.
Harold (Geoffrey Rush) had a rough childhood during the Depression, and saw too much too soon. He becomes a hard-drinking dock worker who takes out his resentments on his long-suffering wife Dora (Judy Davis) and their five children. Harold is particularly tough on Tony (Jesse Spencer). He won't acknowledge Tony's accomplishments, and takes a particular delight in pitting Tony in competitions against his brothers, especially his brother John, also an accomplished swimmer.
With a huge assist from his mother, Tony transmutes the trauma of his home life into a mental toughness that serves him well in school and in the pool. After winning national championships in Australia, he gets a swimming scholarship to Harvard, and takes himself off to America and a better life. Tony's major triumph isn't winning swim meets or scholarships, though; it's finding the inner strength to not become bitter and emotionally callous himself.
Director Russell Mulcahey serves up engrossing, occasionally wrenching domestic scenes, and injects excitement into the swim meets by focusing on the family tensions the competitions generate - there's so much more at stake for Tony than simply winning a backstroke race. In lesser hands, the story might have become mawkish, but Rush and Davis in particular deliver beautifully nuanced performances. Rush gives us reasons to pity a detestable man, and Davis shows us a steely strength that makes Dora more than a victim.
This film will hopefully find a second life in the DVD channels and reach the wider audience it deserves.
Father and Son Struggle
A wonderful story of a son that desires his father's approval. Event under trying circumstances. More than just about swimming....
The Swimming Pool
"Swimming Upstream" did not play in Chicago, but I know it did receive a limited run in New York. I recall reading Stephen Holden's review in the New York Times. But what a shame that a movie as good as this one did not have a theatrical run. It is the second movie I have seen this year that has went straight to video, the other was "Not on the Lips". And I just don't understand it. Both movies have a talented cast. In this movies case Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis. They both have "A" list production values, smart scripts and yet for some reasons the studios decided they didn't want to make money with these movies.
This is not to imply "Swimming Upstream" would have been number one at the box-office. I seriously doubt it. It would have done mininal business at best. But at least then it would have been up for Oscar consideration. I know a movie has to play in New York and L.A. to earn an Oscar nomination but I'm not sure if there are stipulations has to how long it has to play or if a certain amount of time must pass before it is on DVD. This would be sad if Rush and Davis could not be nominated.
"Swimming Upstream" is based on the true story of Tony Fingleton (Jesse Spencer) and his dreams of becoming an Olympic champ and the realities of life with a harsh uncaring father, Harold (Rush).
The movie is based on Fingleton's book which he co-wrote with his sister Diane, but adapted on his own for this screenplay.
Knowing this you can tell the movie seems sincere. A lot of the moments seem to reflect real life, while others I must admit reflect "movie life".
Tony has been ignored by his father all of his life. At first his father didn't notice him because he was not good at sports, like his old man who was, according to him, a great football player. Instead young Tony enjoys playing the piano, mostly the minute waltz, and swimming. One day Harold takes his children, five children; four boys and one girl, to the local swimming pool and there he notices two of his son's talent for swimming. So he trains Tony and John (Tim Draxl) to compete in various contest, and they win. But Harold clearly has high plans for John. Tony is an after thought. The movie then becomes about Tony's struggle to overcome his father.
Isn't it odd, given this story-line that Geoffrey Rush is playing the dad. If you remember he won the Academy Award for the movie "Shine" about a young boy who is pushed into piano contests by his dominating father. Now it is Rush's turn to play the brute father.
The film has a lot of suspense working in the swimming scenes, or at least I was caught up in the moments. A split screen is used when we watch these scenes and for it created a excitment that wouldn't have been had it been shot the more conventional way. Because we can see what it means not only to John and Tony to win but we can also see what is means to Dora (Davis) and Harold.
If people will actually give the movie a chance, they might enjoy it. "Swimming Upstream" has some good acting, in my opinion it is Oscar caliber. And should not go unseen by the public.
Bottom-line: Enjoyable, if maybe at times too sentimental, story of a real life swimming champion. Rush and Davis have some good moments on-screen.
Writer/director Pedro Almodóvar's dark, sexy Hitchcock homage is his best work since his Oscar-winning All About My Mother, and deepened by a sun-dappled sadness. Handsome, enigmatic Ángel (Gael García Bernal) arrives at the Spanish movie offices of director Enrique Goded (Fele Martinez) and happily proclaims that he's actually Enrique's long-lost school chum Ignacio--an announcement that is both less than convincing and more than it seems. A novice actor, Ángel pitches a semi-autobiographical screenplay in which he's determined to star, a revenge-laden reflection of the doomed love he and Enrique shared as boys before a pedophile priest cruelly intervened. The script, and the lost days it recalls, carefully unfurls into a series of brooding movies-within-movies... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gael García Bernal - Fele Martínez - Javier Cámara Director(s): Pedro Almodóvar DVD Release Date: Released the 12 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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One of the best films of 2004, Kinsey pays tribute to the flawed but honorable man who revolutionized our understanding of human sexuality. As played by Liam Neeson in writer-director Bill Condon's excellent film biography, Indiana University researcher Alfred Kinsey was so consumed by statistical measurements of human sexual activity that he almost completely overlooked the substantial role of emotions and their effect on human behavior. This made him an ideal researcher and science celebrity who revealed that sexual behaviors previously considered deviant and even harmful (homosexuality, oral sex, etc.) are in fact common and essentially normal in the realm of human experience, but whose obsession with scientific method frequently placed him at odds with his understanding wife... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Liam Neeson - Laura Linney - Chris O'Donnell Director(s): Bill Condon DVD Release Date: Released the 17 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Though the subject matter of Mysterious Skin is as sensational as that of Gregg Araki's other films (such as Totally F***ked Up, The Doom Generation, or The Living End), his direction is richer and more multilayered than ever before. Two Kansas teenagers named Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 10 Things I Hate About You) and Brian (Brady Corbett, Thirteen) share a childhood trauma--but their responses are radically different: Neil hustles tricks, while Brady, who can't remember what happened, believes he was abducted by aliens and left with "missing time." As both try to make sense of their lives and Brian struggles to find out the truth, Mysterious Skin builds to an emotional pitch that some viewers will find uncomfortable and others will find... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Brady Corbet - Elisabeth Shue Director(s): Gregg Araki DVD Release Date: Released the 25 October 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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If you're determined to spend three hours with Oliver Stone's take on the personal and military struggles of ancient Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great, you should know that Alexander (Colin Farrell, in blonde disarray) is not half so much fun as mom Olympias (Angelina Jolie) or his future wild bride Roxane (Rosario Dawson). Indeed, it's the women in Alex's life who provide the movie's most satisfying action: Jolie, sporting some kind of Russian accent, wraps herself in snakes while hissing promises of Farrell's destiny; Dawson disrobes and threatens to cut Farrell's throat before shtupping his brains out. The rest is leaden history, supposedly novel because it showcases epic battle sequences and addresses Alexander's great love for his buddy Hephaistion (Jared Leto). But the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Anthony Hopkins - Angelina Jolie Director(s): Oliver Stone DVD Release Date: Released the 02 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The dazed, dreamlike world of director David Gordon Green remains intact, although Undertow has more story than his previous gems (All the Real Girls, George Washington). In the hot, green Georgia countryside, a man (Dermot Mulroney) lives with his two sons on a farm; their existence is shattered by the arrival of the man's Faulknerian brother (Josh Lucas), a dangerous sort with an ulterior motive. The movie that follows is like The Night of the Hunter filtered through a Days of Heaven lens--there's even a Heaven-like narration provided by Jamie Bell. That's what you get for having Terrence Malick produce your movie. The plot doesn't always sit comfortably with Green's uncanny style--sometimes it feels like an intrusion on a private world of... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jamie Bell - Dermot Mulroney - Devon Alan - Josh Lucas Director(s): David Gordon Green DVD Release Date: Released the 26 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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