Last night, I finally watched Vindication Swim; a film I’d been looking forward to for quite some time, due to the fact that a) the story interested me and b) I’m currently working on a project around relationships with water, particularly wild swimmers.
So, having an offer of a screener for this film turn up in my inbox felt a bit like kismet.
When I first watched the trailer, and read the blurb about Mercedes Gleitze‘s (played by Kirsten Callaghan) story, I was absolutely compelled to watch, because this feels like a full and complete delve into someone’s real-life relationship with water in a dramatic, trailblazing way.
In fact, writer and director Elliott Hasler was quoted saying:
It was our aim to really submerge the audience into the waters of the English Channel and in that way hope to pay homage to the spirit of this incredible woman. Everything you see on screen is real, all shot without the use of tanks, green screens or body doubles. I want audiences to feel as if they are swimming right alongside Mercedes on her incredible journey and share in her love affair with the water.
And that, they certainly did! The water scenes were certainly my favourite parts of this movie, which I found so very moving at times. But there’s also quite a lot more to the film than that; there’s also a sense of danger, of darkness, and of light at the end of the tunnel.
After all, Vindication Swim isn’t just a story telling the perils of swimming the channel in 1927 – it’s also telling the perils of being the first British woman to do so, and indeed the perils of just being a woman in 1927, dealing with the oppressive norms of the time.
Mercedes is working in a job where she’s under appreciated, and her boss is getting a bit too friendly. She walks into a pub (something that’s less done when you’re a woman at the time) and the environment there also seems hostile. Someone attempts to pay her off from swimming the channel at all.
But she doesn’t give in, even when the channel itself wants to kill her. She keeps going, becomes the first British woman to swim the channel, and does so in 15 hours. If the story ended there, it’d be a happy place to leave things – but unfortunately someone else comes along who’s clearly faked it.
This puts Mercedes’ position into question, too, and she’s forced to vindicate herself by doing yet another swim, this time in the cold October weather. Obviously, it’s an extremely tough challenge, and Mercedes risks her title and her life taking this monumental task, almost teetering on the edge of drowning.
It’s an extremely emotional, evocative ending, and I found myself welling up watching her reactions. This is, after all, an award-winning debut performance from Kirsten Callaghan, and it’s easy to see why.
I thought it was overall a very well done film in terms of getting across the journey Mercedes went through, her drivers (the link to her father) and her doubts and weaknesses – which makes up for some of the more wooden acting and slower scenes involving more minor characters.
Overall, I’d recommend watching Vindication Swim as a beautifully shot, moving and compelling biographical drama, which is released here in the UK on 8th March; International Women’s Day (AKA “But when is it International Men’s Day?”).
