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Well, would you look at that. You wait ages for a film about middle-aged men forming a synchronised swimming team and then two come along at once. Then eight years pass because you didn’t know that either of them existed. Then one day you watch them as a double bill and review them for Last Movie Outpost.
The two movies in question are the British film Swimming with Men and the French film Sink or Swim (or Le Grand Pain, to give it its French title). Both were released in 2018 and are based on the same true story.
The real team were Swedish. Their story was told in the 2010 documentary Men who Swim, and before that in a 2008 Swedish made-for-television movie The Swimsuit Issue (or Allt Flyter). That’s four feature length films about the same thing.
The true story is as absurd and high concept as you might imagine. A group of pasty middle-aged men take up water ballet “as a protest against the meaninglessness of life.” Replace ‘water ballet’ with ‘movie reviews’ and I’ve just described Last Movie Outpost.
The twist is that those crazy Swedes went on to win the world championship. Is there a world championship for movie reviews? If not, why not? Microsoft Excel has its own world championship, for God’s sake.
Nerd alert
It’s clear why the story is so appealing to filmmakers. Spirited underdogs succeeding against the odds. One last shot at redemption. The inherent comedy associated with past-their-prime men flailing about in the water with considerably less grace than a gorilla in a paddling pool.
It’s the kind of concept where people say ‘you couldn’t make it up,’ the logic being that nobody would believe such clichéd nonsense if it was pure fiction. But it isn’t, so we’re good to go.
Inspired by true events
Both Swimming with Men and Sink or Swim use the real story as inspiration but are fictional tales otherwise. The Swedish protagonists become British/French. Swimming with Men gives a nice nod to the true story by having the real team appear as their Swedish rivals.
Bizarrely, but hardly uniquely in the world of film, both movies were made independently of each other at the exact same time and were unaware of the other until deep into production. The irony of two movies about synchronised swimming being synchronised is not lost on me.
They share a lot of surface level similarities. Both are comedies with a tinge of midlife crisis related drama. They both star a depressed family man (played by Rob Bryden and Mathieu Amalric). Both feature a female coach who used to be a synchronised swimmer. Both end with an appearance at the world championship.
But the storytelling is quite different. For anyone interested in screenwriting, comparing the two approaches is a useful exercise. I’m not saying either is better. Both have their positives and negatives, so it may come down to personal taste, or the extent to which you are French.
Swimming with Men
Of the two movies, Swimming with Men will feel more familiar to Anglo-American audiences, and not just because of the language. The writing is tighter and the movie clocks in at a lean 1:30. It skips along at a nice pace. It’s fun. Some scenes feel more cinematic but less naturalistic than Sink or Swim.
More time is spent on training than Sink or Swim, and you can appreciate how hard the actors must have worked to pull off the moves.
Swimming with Men is brighter and breezier. Character arcs get wrapped up neatly, although it can feel forced at times. Think The Full Monty (1997) or Men Up (2023). The story is new, but it’s the type of movie we’ve seen before.
I didn’t want too many pictures of semi-naked men, so here is Charlotte Riley. She’s Tom Hardy’s wife.
Brits tend to be more repressed than their European cousins and this is reflected in the screenplays. While the French team use their post-swim sauna as a group therapy session, the British team have a strict ‘no talking about your personal life’ rule. It’s the opposite of Fight Club.
This approach also works to keep the runtime down. We don’t spend too long on each of the eight team members. We get to know them through their banter during training. Personal information is drip-fed in at key times, in a ‘tell, don’t show’ way. It provides just enough character and motivation to make them feel like real people you can care about.
Sink or Swim
Sink or Swim clocks in at just over two hours and tries to cram way too much into its extended runtime, but you can’t accuse it of being unambitious.
The French movie weaves multiple subplots for its team, with only token Sri Lankan Avanish receiving short shrift. We delve deep into their personal lives which creates a well-rounded group of characters, although not necessarily ones that you like. These are imperfect men, and the French aren’t afraid to highlight that.
It makes sense. There’s a reason these guys’ lives are fucked, after all. No sane man dances in a swimming pool with other men. Do they?
Inevitably, when a film balances so many story threads, it sags in places. Subplots are forgotten or dropped for long periods. Other strands feel underdeveloped, rushed or unsatisfying.
Weirdly, I don’t feel that this always represents lacklustre writing. It’s just the French being French, favouring authenticity over spectacle and character over plot. Not everything gets wrapped up in a neat bow. It can feel frustrating at times, but I still kind of dig their style.
Hands up who wants a subplot. Not you, Avanish.
Overall
Swimming with Men could have been ten minutes longer and Sink or Swim could have been a ten-part Netflix series. But despite their differences, it’s hard to separate them in terms of overall quality. So I will give them a synchronised rating.
The post Double Review: SINK OR SWIM and SWIMMING WITH MEN appeared first on Last Movie Outpost.
