Director: Joachim Rønning
Writer: Jeff Nathanson, Glenn Stout
Stars: Daisy Ridley, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Stephen Graham
Synopsis: The story of competitive swimmer Trudy Ederle, who, in 1926, was the first woman to ever swim across the English Channel.
At some point during Joachim Rønning’s woeful biopic of champion swimmer Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle, one can imagine Russell Crowe as Maximus walking into the frame and proclaiming, “Are you not inspired!” Not content to let Ederle’s remarkable achievements in competitive women’s swimming stand on their own merits, Jeff Nathanson’s trite script embellishes so often that one begins to doubt Trudy’s existence. There certainly was a Trudy Ederle, and she was an Olympic swimmer who grew up on Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan and was the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1926. She had a sister named Margaret and was the daughter of German immigrants. She had measles as a child which affected her hearing. She trained under Charlotte “Eppy” Epstein and the WSA and was guided by both Jabez Wolffe and Bill Burgess. So far, so true. However, Young Woman and the Sea goes about telling Trudy’s story in a manner that stretches credulity to breaking point.
The film opens with Gertrude (Daisy Ridley) facing the Channel from the shore of Cape Gris-Nez in France. She sings “Ain’t We Got Fun” to herself before she enters the water and the film cuts back to where it all began – Gertrude (Olive Abercrombie) and Meg (Lily Aspell) as children living above their father Henry’s (Kim Bodin) butcher shop. There are the sounds of sirens as the General Slocomb sinks, taking with it a portion of “Little Germany’s” residents including children. Frau Ederle (Jeanette Hain) frets so much that she makes sure her children will learn how to swim to avoid such a tragedy. However, a more personal tragedy is looming as Gertrude almost dies from the measles. Her fever breaks and soon she is forcing her parents to let her swim along with Meg. Because she was infected, she learns by being tied to a barrel on the Jersey shore and Coney Island. Meg has the more traditional lessons and, at first, it seems that she will be the champion swimmer – but Trudy’s pluck and courage find her training with Charlotte “Eppy” Epstein (Sian Phillips) and overcoming her bad technique (“Kick, Trudy, kick!”).
Meg (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) and Trudy (Daisy Ridley) are now teens and dealing with sexism and disapproval. Young immigrant women don’t get to go past Amsterdam Avenue and make a name for themselves in any endeavor beyond marriage. Except they do – as Trudy and other members of the WSA go to the Olympic Games in Paris in 1924 and score a lot of medals despite the dastardly James Sullivan (Glenn Fleshler) hiring Jabez Wolffe (a petulant Christopher Eccleston) to stymie their efforts in favor of the male swimmers who include Johnny Weissmuller.
Somehow, winning medals is the death of women’s swimming and they’ll never be allowed back at the Olympics (patently false as American women swam the next Olympics and all of the Olympics America was involved in – but never mind that) so Meg decides to take one for the Ederle team and marry a nice German boy because, “that’s what happens to girls here,” and “no one wants two girls from the butcher’s shop to be heroes.” No nice American boy for Meg, and no swimming for Trudy especially not when it is so immodest, and the police are checking the length of bathers on Coney Island Beach.
Yet Trudy isn’t going to let a little thing like backlash against women’s suffrage, insecure men who failed to reach their dreams, and paternal negating stop her from being the one who does the marathon swim – especially when little girls think she’s neat.
Aided by Eppy and Meg, Trudy makes a bet that she can swim from Battery Park to Sandy Hook in a matter of hours – if she wins Sullivan will pay to sponsor her English Channel crossing. Win she does, but she doesn’t reckon on Jabez being set up as her coach – a man who is told to do everything in his power to ensure she fails, or drowns, or some such.
It almost works as Jabez indulges in dirty tricks. Luckily the over-the-top Bill Burgess (Stephen Graham) is there to ensure there are no more attempted drownings and both Henry and Meg turn up to help Trudy get back on her feet and make the crossing – even ensuring she can escape from Sullivan’s guarded cabin.
Wave after wave of ridiculous challenges hit Trudy. The weather! Jellyfish! Goggles taking in water. But golly, gee whiz, our girl isn’t going down without a fight. Trudy looks determined. Trudy is indefatigable. Trudy yells a lot. Meg is amazed and even does a bit of swimming. Everyone is astounded or having a tantrum (Jabez is humiliated). The score by Amelia Warner insists everyone is impressed. Cutting between Mother Gertrud and Henry Jr., (Ethan Rouse) listening to the report on the wireless at home in New York is dramatic tension. So too Charlotte whooping, “You go, girl!” from her apartment window; “Kick ya feet!” (Somewhere, someone is also yelling “Run, Forrest, run!”).
There is a memetic saying, “Of all the things that didn’t happen, that didn’t happen the most.” Young Woman and the Sea indulges in so many patent falsehoods that no one even has to do even the briefest fact check to know they are being fed an idiotic narrative masquerading as truth. There were enough factors in Trudy’s life which made what she did exciting and groundbreaking, so why go the making stuff up route? Heroic young woman completes a marathon swim in record time is enough. Between terrible accents, over acting, and ridiculous plotting, Trudy Ederle becomes dimensionless. Young Woman and the Sea is not only a bad film it is wrongheaded. If eye rolling was the intended effect, Joachim Rønning has hit the jackpot. If honoring a champion was what the film had in mind – the movie not only flops, it sinks, taking almost everyone involved with it to the bottom of the ocean.
