Young Woman and the Sea

On the face of it, it's a bit similar to last year's "Nyad", only I found this to be a more engaging depiction of the story of a young woman determined to struggle against not just the water, but of the societal limitations put upon her sex and assumed about her potential a mere century ago. As a young child, Trudy Ederle contracts measles. The doctor thinks that nothing can be done, but she has no intention of throwing in the towel yet and decides she'd rather have some cheese than a coffin! This illness is taking place against news of a maritime tragedy that saw many women killed. They were afraid to leave the burning ferry boat because they couldn't swim. Trudy wants to learn to swim, her mother wants her to learn to swim - but her father, an immigrant German butcher, is much more conformist. It's not right for women to swim! Now we get our first indication of the strength of mind of the women in this family as, sure enough, mother (Jeanette Hain) finds her and sister "Meg" (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) a women only swimming club run by "Lottie" (Sian Clifford) and next, after some seriously punishing training sessions, she (now Daisy Ridley) has her heart set on the Paris Olympiad. History takes over her story now as we follow this hugely inspirational person who sets out to prove that her sex need be no barrier to her abilities and that with the right support around her, she can accomplish just about anything. A combination of Ridley's enthusiastic and exhausting performance and a strong slew of supporting actors make this a genuinely quite poignant piece of cinema. Not only does it address issues of sexual repression, but also of racial and cultural attitudes that needed looking at from both within and without. Stephen Graham turns out well as the savvy coach Burgess and Kim Bidnia also strikes a fine balance between caring, fearing and inspiring as her father Henry. I am not really a fan of Christopher Eccleston, and his overly hammy depiction of Scotsman Jabez Wolffe didn't quite work for me, but this story is built well from the sand up by Joachim Rønning allowing us to feel some of the emotions running through the veins of this groundbreaking athlete and understand just quite why the public at the time cared, too.

Disney back at it with the great sports biopics! I remember when I watched all of Disney's main release catalogue of way over 250 movies in 2020 I realised they had produced a tonne of biographical sports/drama films around the 00s... and they, for the most part, were all great movies! <em>'The Greatest Game Ever Played'</em> and <em>'Glory Road'</em> were two of my favourites. They'd all follow a similar formula, yet would each be really entertaining to see unfold. In recent times they haven't quite made as many and they haven't been quite as grand, though a few were relatively good in fairness; like <em>'Rise'</em> and <em>'Safety'</em>. <em>'Young Woman and the Sea'</em> feels more akin to the earlier mentioned period for this studio with this genre. Joachim Rønning & Co. did a terrific job with this 2024 movie. The pacing, in particular, stood out to be perfect to me personally. I could feel the movie moving at a nice pace throughout, as one branch of the story ended another began. Funnily enough, the end is where things slow down the most, at least that's how I felt. That isn't a bad thing though, because the conclusion still moves along well and is better in other ways. Daisy Ridley puts in an excellent showing in the lead role, I've only seen her properly act in that certain beloved franchise so it was pleasant to see her away from that world. Kim Bodnia (also nice to see him elsewhere, I had only seen him in a few Danish flicks), Jeanette Hain and Tilda Cobham-Hervey are pluses. Away from them, always happy to watch Stephen Graham act, while Christopher Eccleston plays his role strongly - I genuinely felt anger inside me towards his character, so kudos to all involved for making that happen - always a sign of a quality movie if they can do that to the viewer. This is undoubtedly one of those films that deserves more eyes on it, being on Disney+ it should get them eventually. Highly recommended!