Swimming With Men: Film Review
Cast: Rob Brydon, Jane Horrocks, Daniel Mays, Jim Carter, Thomas Turgoose, Rupert Graves, Adeel Aktar, Charlotte Riley
Director: Oliver Parker
There's a kernel of a decent movie trying to rise to the surface in this tale about a male synchronised swimming team.
Easily dismissed as The Full Monty under water, Parker's take on the male midlife crisis movie is fairly middle of the road.
Brydon plays Eric, an accountant who's been in the job since forever. Tired and jaded of it all, and insecure after his wife (Horrocks, wasted in a minor role) finds her second wind as a local councillor.
His only reprieve from the tedium of spreadsheets and nondescript lift journeys is in the pool, where one day he finds a group of men practising their moves.
Asked to join by the members ('It's not just a club, it's an idea, a protest against who we've become" one says), Eric finds his second wind also.
Swimming With Men is the kind of film that works best on TV, rather than the big screen, offering as it does little that's not been seen before.
But it's also not above using a poo in a pool at a kids' event to promote some laughs.
Based on a true story it may be (about a Swedish male swim team), and while there's something about the indefatigable Brydon doing his everyman thing again, the film doesn't offer much of life outside the pool to really grab you.
Each of the fellow swimmers is fairly loosely sketched, with a little more afforded to Rupert Graves' character as he bonds with Eric (despite the warnings that lives outside stay private). It's not that that's a bad thing, but the speed bumps when they come, can be seen miles off as the relatively pedestrian comedy tries to hit its stride.
It's all about the feelgood factor, and midlife crisis of friendships - and while Swimming With Men doesn't exactly do anything sensational with those ideas, it does present them pleasantly, albeit occasionally in a pedestrian fashion.
It's almost as if Parker was afraid to do anything radical with this tale, and lumped for the basic approach rather than something memorable.
As it is, Swimming With Men doesn't exactly swim to the top, but it doesn't also sink to the bottom without a trace - it's probably safer in the shallow part of the pool, than the emotionally deeper quarters.
