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Swimming Upstream

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I guarantee that you have not heard of "Swimming Upstream". This is a shame. Although it is not a great film, it deserves a larger audience.

Harold Fingleton (Geoffrey Rush, "Shine", "Quills") is an abusive, alcoholic father. His wife, Dora (Judy Davis, "Husbands and Wives") seems to put up with it, to keep their family of four boys and one daughter together. Trying to eke out a living on the docks, Harold frequently spends what money he makes on beer and leaves the family to fend for themselves. The oldest son, Harold Jr. is the light of his father's eye. Good at football, Harold is proud of Jr. and makes no effort to hide the fact that he favors the one son. The other sons then compete for their father's attentions. One day at the pool, Harold realizes that two of his sons are quite good. Tony has an amazing backstroke and John is a great freestyle swimmer. Harold switches his attentions to John and begins coaching them both, pushing them to become better. Five years later, the two boys are entering competitions and still looking for their father's approval. Tony (Jesse Spencer) is becoming quite a force on the junior competition circuit and will probably win. John (Tim Draxl), a year younger, is still the apple of his father's eye, but has conflicting feelings about his relationship with his brother, Tony.

Based on a true story, "Swimming Upstream", directed by Russell Mulcahy, is a riveting story. At times it becomes a little soap opera-ish, but the force of the performances helps the film stand out.

No film starring Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis is going to be bad. Both people are amazing actors and take these roles by the reins and ride them for all they are worth. Rush plays Harold Fingleton, a real bastard. Working sporadically, he often comes home drunk and his mood changes on a dime. He will either love his wife or get mad and start hitting her. A difficult childhood is alluded to, but not really explored, as the reason for his behavior. What makes the performance so good is that Rush goes at it full tilt. He wants to portray the man for all he was, holding nothing back. There is never a point that we actually like him, and I believe that this would be the case if we actually met the man. Also, despite the fact that he is such a cruel father, we understand why each of the boys is starving for his attention and admiration. You starve for something you never receive. He was also devious, as he works to pit the two brothers against one another.

Judy Davis is one of the best actors working today. She always creates believable characters that come to life, losing herself in the role. As the abused wife, Dora, Davis makes us understand why she would stay with this jerk for so long. And that's important, because he is really a horrendous being. She has loved him in the past. She loves her kids and wants them to have a relatively stable home, despite all of the problems. She is a multi-dimensional character. A wrenching moment comes late in the film when she realizes that one of the kids is about to make a decision that he needs to make, but she doesn't want him to make.

Jesse Spencer, who plays Tony, is also quite good. He has matinee idol looks and can act, traits which usually translate into a long career as a superstar. He portrays Tony's conflicting feelings about his father quite well. Through the story, we see him grow; become stronger and less reliant on a kind word from his father. As his confidence grows, Harold realizes that he doesn't have the control over him that he once had, which causes him no small amount of consternation.

Russell Mulcahy, who directed the first two "Highlander" films, "The Real McCoy" and "The Shadow" in the early 90s, has been concentrating on television work recently. During parts of "Swimming", this shows. Some of the more abstract sequences, meant to convey the feelings of a particular character are a little overwrought. For instance, in one scene, Tony feels that he is "drowning under pressure"; therefore Mulcahy shows his floating in a swimming pool, completely clothed, with a light shining down on him from above. Yawn! Thankfully, these scenes are few and far between.

Mulcahy is better at showing all of the action in a swimming meet. As the first match begins, he switches between shots of the Fingleton family and the action in the pool. Then he begins splitting the screen into quadrants, showing Tony about to launch from his starting point in one frame, a shot of Harold eagerly watching, a shot of Dora very anxious, and another shot of another angle of Tony. This technique continues through the swim meets, showing us different aspects of the action. This may seem more obtrusive than it actually is. This technique, which is technically a montage, but ramped up to another level, the uber-montage, helps to keep the action moving, showing all of the different things as they happen during these sequences.

This film was released in theaters a couple of months ago, playing for little more than a week. The film was actually made in 2003, yet MGM decided to release it in 2005? The film is based on the story of Tony Fingleton, a real swimmer and member of the Australian swim team in the early 60s. Maybe I'm crazy, but wouldn't it seem natural to release the film either before or after the 2004 Summer Olympics, and capitalize on all of the press surrounding Michael Phelps and the swimming events? MGM didn't do this and the film found almost no audience during it's theatrical release.

Hopefully, you will find this film (it is available on Netflix) and help this little gem in the rough find a belated audience of admirers.

Australian director, Russell Mulcahy got his start producing MTV style music videos for new wave rock bands back in the early eighties. His intensely overt visual style, and his fondness for slick, flashy flair made him one of the darlings of the international pop-culture set. In his new film, Swimming Upstream, you can see Mulcahy's imaginative flamboyance at work, with varying degrees of success.

In adapting Australian swimmer, Anthony Fingleton's memoir, Mulcahy has tried to balance the story of the triumph of a sporty underdog with a melodrama of a dysfunctional father-and-son relationship. He does this fairly successfully, but the problem is that in the end, his overwrought MTV-ready visual style obscures any real dramatic heft to the story of the young swimmer.

Mulcahy's split-screen, techno-scored manner of presenting Tony's swim races could have been effective - that is, if he didn't use the style in the exact same way over and over again; something's wrong when these would-be exciting sequences are predictable right down to the rhythms of the edits and image wipes, complete with overused fantasy scenes and pulsating contemporary dance music.

The story is set in 1950s-60s Queensland (which makes the use of the modern techno-music even stranger). Tony (Jesse Spencer) is a sensitive, talented piano-playing boy whose gruff and angry father Harold (a brilliant Geoffrey Rush) relentlessly ridicules him for not being manly enough. His older brother Harold Jr. is a bullying lout, so Tony spends his days hanging out at the local pool with his younger brother John (Tim Draxl).

Harold is a working class dockworker whose behavior alternates between alcoholic and abusive, while their Mother, Dora (a terrific Judy Davis) tries to protect them from his unpredictable and erratic violent episodes. One afternoon at the local pool, Harold sees his sons' swimming and realizes that the pool is the one place his book-loving son can excel and, by extension, bring glory to himself.

Tony soon matures into a regional-champion backstroker. But Harold remains strangely unaffected by his success, preferring to lose himself in drink than fully support his son's efforts to become Australia's national champion. Tony, however, is able to rise above his father's disconsolate ways, constantly coming to the aid of his beat-up and battered mother.

When Harold, with devilish glee, pushes John to vie with Tony for swim medals, Tony can't fathom how his best friend has been turned into a rival by their dad. As the story enters the '60s, the brothers' bond dissolves in the water and an angry, embittered competitiveness results. Tony competes in the Empire Games but John, his father's favourite, wants the glory too.

Rush and Davis are absolutely extraordinary in their roles, with Davis the perfect mix of the vulnerable and the feisty; her matriarch is sympathetic, compassionate, and beautifully shaded. Rush is in top form as Harold; he drunkenly bellows at the top of his lungs, and spews hateful slurs at his devoted and committed son. Scenes of Harold verbally abusing Tony alternate with even more harrowing sequences of Harold beating up on Dora who remains absolutely steadfast in her support of Tony.

The problem is that there's not much of an attempt to shed any possible insight as to why Harold hates Tony so much - the reasons are hinted at but ultimately get swallowed up somewhere in the narrative. Consequently, the story at times unwittingly feels like two separate movies: One of Harold's and Dora's dysfunctional, abusive marriage, and the other, of Tony's efforts to become a championship swimmer.

The recreation of Australian detail is excellent, but Swimming Upstream is mostly worth watching for Rush and Davis, who are undoubtedly two of the best actors working today. It's just a pity that the movie doesn't exercise more emotional heft and play out more like a straight biopic, because a story such as this deserves a much better treatment than Mulcahy is willing to give it. Mike Leonard June 05.

Any film with Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis in a true sports story of family dysfunction and child abuse recommends itself, and after finding its backstroke this one clocks in a winner. The two sets of actors who play their three sons as youngsters and young men are attractive athletes who actually can act. One son, Australian Olympic swimmer Tony Fingleton, advised the director and spared no one: the unloving father, the mother who enables his cruelty, and the bullying elder brother. The sons excel at swimming to escape their father's verbal, emotional and physical abuse, only to be forced by him to compete against each other.

Fingleton's story is inspiring. Watching it is another matter. It upends our notions of family and argues for the licensing of parents. The demons that fuel the father's personality disorder are hinted at; the mother's weak protests only stoke her husband's behavior. Their sons seek love and approval, only to have it rejected. Rush and Davis brilliantly convey the parents' inability to change their ways. Jesse Spencer's physical prowess, as the swimmer who survives, is as impressive as his acting in a part that will flutter a few hearts in and out of the pool.

There are some amazing flourishes, not the least of which is how the director shoots the swimming meets, splitting the screen into two to four frames that show all aspects of the race, his camera moving fluidly above and below water. He also moves directly into scenes of family discord knowing that these real people are still alive and remember. "Swimming Upstream" has the courage of convictions that are as relevant today as in the 1960s. It is a painful and powerful picture to watch.

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.

Tony Fingleton was a champion backstroke swimmer who grew up in Brisbane in the early 1960s. Whether he became one because or despite of his father is the central question of "Swimming Upstream," a 2003 Australian film directed by Russell Mulcahy. Fingleton did the screenplay, based on the autobiography he wrote with his sister Diane, so there is no doubt this is the story he wishes to tell. But I am not sure even he can answer that question definitively one way or the other.

Young Tony Fingleton (Mitchell Dellevergin) was a gangly and sickly boy, who liked to play the piano and was ignored by his father, Harold (Geoffrey Rush), who worked on the docks of Brisbane when he was not on strike or drunk. Harold is an abusive man who alternates between violent rages and coldly threatening silences. When he fights with his wife, Dora (Judy Davis), their four sons and only daughter know to go hide in their rooms or head out for the neighborhood swimming pool. The oldest son is named for his father and encouraged to bully his siblings, but when young John (Thomas Davidson) shows aptitude as a swimmer, he becomes the apple of his father's eye. At the start, Tony is almost as good as his brother, but that means nothing to their father.

By the time they are teenagers, Tony (Jesse Spencer) and John (Tim Draxl) are local swimming sensations. Everybody is talking about Tony's backstroke and John's freestyle, but Harold only cares about John and even finds a way to add insult to the injury he is inflicting on his son. But Harold is also driving Tony and John apart as brothers, destroying the bond he had created between the pair as a way of surviving their father in the first place. For Tony winning a championship is clearly an attempt to win his father's approval, even though that would truly be the proverbial too little too late, but then he learns that winning at swimming can get him a scholarship to a top American college, which would mean leaving his father, and the rest of his family, behind. There is little doubt this would be a good thing, but it would also be the final nail in the coffin of the Fingleton family.

Mulcahy does a nice job with the swimming competitions, where he uses a constantly moving split screen to capture the excitement of the races. But what stands out most in this film is Rush's performance and the chilling blank and empty stares he gives his family. The threat of violence is quite frightening, because you know Harold can explode at any moment and there is a real threat that someone could get hurt. Even when Harold is not on screen his wife and his children are responding to him, anticipating his moods and desperately trying to stay on the narrow ledge of his good side. There is some acknowledgment that Harold was abused as a child, but the characters are clearly much more willing to except that implied excuse a lot more than viewer who do not have a deep rooted need to make allowances for this terrible man.

The final scene can be read a number of ways, but I doubt whether it brings you any closer to determing how the film answers the central question. There is ample evidence to support a "yes" or a "no," but ultimately it is that ambiguity that provides this drama with its power. The tragedy here is that when it comes to pleasing his father, Tony Fingleton was damned if he did and damned if he did not. On a much happier note, both his autobiography and his screenplay, indicate that he has come to terms with his father and his family, even if all of the viewers of "Swimming Upstream" have not.

"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.

Sometimes, success is both caused by and causes great tragedy. That seems to be the case in Swimming Upstream, a biopic based on the life of Anthony (Tony) Fingleton, who won a silver medal in the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games and could have been on the Australian team for the '64 olympics, but chose to attend Harvard instead.

The older Tony is played by Jesse Spencer, who gives off that wholesome feeling one associates with Cary Elwes or Richard Thomas. (The younger Tony is played by Mitchell Dellevergin.) Tony is the second of five kids in a family that leads an existence forever short of money. His dad, Harold (Geoffrey Rush) is often on strike at the docks, and his mom, Dora (Judy Davis), depends on scraps of overrun fabric and a tab at the local grocery store in order to make ends meet. We learn right at the beginning that life with Dad is completely dependent on his mood and how much he's been drinking. Dad might show some rare affection, but he is just as likely to give you or Mom a quick backhand across the face.

As if life with Dad wasn't hard enough, Tony has to deal with an older, bullying brother, played in the younger case by a very frightening Kain O'Keeffe. He is named Harold Jr. after his father, and he inflicts on Tony a miniature version of Dad's abuse. In one scene of sibling jealousy, Harold Jr. slams a piano keyboard cover down on Tony's fingers. When Tony runs out and tells Dad, Dad doesn't punish Harold Jr., but instead has them put on boxing gloves, which, of course, leads to Tony getting double punishment. At this point we are wondering what is going on with Dad. Is he just generally sadistic? Or does he not like Tony specifically? (We will later get hints that something tragic happened in his childhood, perhaps sexual, and that he wasn't strong enough to fight off the "animals.")

Tony's one solace from these abuses is swimming at the local swimming pool with his brother, John, played by Thomas Davidson and Tim Draxl. John is Tony's supporter. John sees Dad's abuse of Tony and says it's not right. John is the one that, during another of Dad's tirades about Tony's being a "poofter," tells Dad that he should come and see them swim, because John knows that Tony really shines in this area.

When Dad does come and sees how good Tony is, suddenly Dad becomes interested in their lives. The next day he begins crack of dawn and evening training sessions. Soon they win their first event. This begins a five-year period of their lives where things are going well. They win every event they enter, with John doing the crawl events and Tony doing the backstroke events. The thing is though, John is really the better swimmer. He wins his events by great distances, whereas Tony wins just barely. They keep family peace by having them compete in separate events. That is until Dad begins pitting brother against brother.

One day Tony shows up to a meet to find John three lanes down from him. Tony loses his first race ever and this leads to great family conflict. Why couldn't John have just stayed in his own events? It will forever disrupt their once perfect friendship.

The rest of the movie, the rest of their lives, is a back and forth between John staying out of Tony's races and sometimes being in them. It is when John stays out that Tony becomes national champion. But it is a great personal sacrifice to John, who sees all the attention Tony is getting in newsreels and from reporters. He had asked Mom before the race, "Don't you want me to win?" "Of course I do," she says. "But I don't want Tony to lose."

So this is the great tragedy of the film and their lives. Only by one brother making a sacrifice does the other brother achieve his dreams. And the biggest tragedy may be the one unstated at the end of the film. We get life updates at the credits. They inform us that Tony graduated from Harvard and lives with his wife and children in America. They inform us that his parents have remained friends. And that is all. There is no update on any other family member. There is no update on John. And it leaves us with the feeling of unspeakable tragedy.

Like very few other people, I have seen the (relatively)uncut 118 minute version of this powerful family drama during a one week trial run in cinemas in 2002. It was released here in Australia two years ago and has taken forever to be released in America. I am sad to see the US version is even shorter (97 mins) to the cut Australian theatrical release (107 mins)....but am pleased to see the DVDis promising deleted scenes----there are a lot of them.....Tim Draxl who almost steals the movie as the brother John, suffered most from the cutting, including an amazing scene with him at an airport, which is sliced down the middle in the theatrical release. This film had money poured into it and it was expected to be a major international movie because of the cast, but studio fiddling ruined Russell Mulcahy's darker, brooding (and more provocative) movie as they attempted to turn it into a wholesome family drama and as a result the film was not given a significant release either in Oz or the States.....At least by viewing the deleted scenes we may be able to appreciate what the final film could have been.

This is a great movie made in Australia. Swimming upstream is approximately 97 minutes and is rated PG-13. It's a about two brothers that fight for their father's affections. Because their father is an alcoholic, he is short tempered, and mean. He favors one son over the other during their growing up years, and it shows throughout their lifetime. This movie takes place mostly in the pool. Where two brothers are coached by their father to compete in local, and out of town swim meets. The trials of growing up with a alcoholic father, and a weak mother, who is scared of her situation she lives in. This movie will keep you interested, and cheering for the underdog. Watch this movie, you will cheer, cry, and get angry, but it's a well made film. So many emotions in one movie!

A wonderful story of a son that desires his father's approval. Event under trying circumstances. More than just about swimming....