SWIMMING WITH MEN
INSPIRED by a true story, director Oliver Parker’s feelgood comedy treads a lot of dramatic water before a rousing finale, which affirms the power of friendship to heal deep emotional wounds.
Swimming With Men follows a group of disillusioned husbands, widowers and singletons, who discover camaraderie, courage and a sense of belonging as a ramshackle synchronised swimming team.
Screenwriter Aschlin Ditta wades through syrupy sentiment festooned with familiar plot points to reach a fist-pumping resolution.
The Full Monty is an obvious template but Parker’s film lacks the rich characterisation, bountiful good humour and lump-in-the-throat emotion, which carried the stripping Sheffield steelworkers all of the way to the Oscars red carpet.
There are some touching moments bubbling beneath the surface of Ditta’s script but back stories are painfully undernourished and a romantic subplot between one of the men and the team’s straighttalking female coach is insipid.
It’s hard to muster sympathy for the characters when their woes are largely self-inflicted.
Regardless, only a stone-cold heart would be unmoved by the team’s sprightly final performance in front of the judges.
Eric (Rob Brydon) is a mild-mannered accountant in the midst of a suffocating midlife crisis.
His councillor wife Heather (Jane Horrocks) seems smitten with her boss (Nathaniel Parker) and Eric struggles to connect to his teenage son Billy (Spike White).
The only time Eric feels he can draw breath is when he is swimming laps at a public pool in his lunch hour.
During one of these stress-reducing workouts, Eric meets Ted (Jim Carter), Luke (Rupert Graves), Colin (Daniel Mays), Tom (Thomas Turgoose), Kurt (Adeel Akhtar), Silent Bob (Chris Epson) and New Guy (Ronan Daly), who have formed their own synchronised swimming team.
Professional swimmer Susan (Charlotte Riley), who works at the pool, encourages the men to compete in the unofficial world championships where they would face the reigning Swedish champions led by her ardent admirer Jonas (Christian Rubeck).
Brydon struggles to mine humour from a flimsy script and his on-screen chemistry with Horrocks is inert, undermining the impact of a fairy tale coda.
Parker’s film works hard to stay afloat and, thanks to a trim running time, keeps its head above water until the end credits.