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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A little seen 3 1/2 star gem, June 7, 2005
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.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Swimming Pool, July 7, 2005
"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.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"You have to use what's in your head!", June 3, 2005
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.
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