Swimming Upstream

This true story of Australian swimmer Tony Fingleton is not your typical "inspirational" tale of rising above the odds to become a champion, it is rather a tale about the real meaning of success. Success is about realising yourself, not the deeds you do or the medals you win. For Tony this was a tough lesson to learn.

The film is brilliantly directed by Russell Mulcahy, who shows unusual restraint, without losing his dynamic and unique style. Some of his direction here reminded me of his work on "Queer As Folk", as he manages to stylise the action without sacrificing the emotional integrity of the screenplay (which was written by Fingleton himself). Although the film is set in the 1950s and 1960s, Mulcahy refuses to become a slave to the period, instead he utilises 21st century editing styles, including the truly thrilling use of split-screens for the race sequences, and a terrific electronic music score, to make this period tale utterly contemporary.

The performances are nothing short of spectacular. Jesse Spencer, who plays Tony, seems set for international stardom. With the face of an angel, and the body of a god, he can hardly fail to make an impression - but he can really act as well! He is ably supported by two of the greatest actors in the world today, and they're both Aussies - Judy Davis and Geoffrey Rush, who play Tony's parents. The story focuses on Tony's relationship with his father, a very strained and complex relationship. Rush's performance is probably his best screen work to date (yes, even better than "Shine"!), as he creates a multi-dimensional being out of what could have been a cliched villain. And Davis just keeps getting better and better as an actress. As the long-suffering mother, she completely avoids cliche, and invests the character with zest, warmth, love and anger. She is dynamite! Tim Draxl is also impressive as Tony's brother John - at once jealous and proud, and Mitchell Dellevergin is perfect as the young Tony. All the performances are excellent, although I could have done without the comic cameo by Dawn Fraser, which harms the emotional intensity of one very important scene.

Perhaps the film hammers its themes a little too relentlessly, but it's easy to forgive a film that has this much heart. Given the right distribution I think this film will go on to great international acclaim, and strong box-office. Another Aussie classic to treasure!

I watched Swimming Upstream as part of the judging for Australia's Film Institute awards and was very impressed with it at that screening. The performances are superb, especially Judy Davis and Geoffery Rush. But the real power of the film lies in it's subtext about a father who managed to disregard his own son.

The implications of this, and the way it was so beautifully, visually and poignantly brought to the screen, is one of the true achievements of this film.

Special mention goes to Anthony Fingleton who wrote the screenplay (based on his autobiography) He and co-writer Diane Fingleton have managed to relate an extrordinary situation without trying to answer the greatest puzzle - how could this happen in a loving family.

A real Gem that will no doubt be overlooked by many. A shame.

I grew up in Sydney during the 1950's and although my childhood was good it wasn't the "good old days" people like to reminisce about.

This film captures the Australia of the 1950's perfectly.

An insular nation still coming to grips with who it was and where it was going.

As a child I saw men traumatised by the war or the depression; unable to express their feelings and as trapped in their roles as were the women.

Rush and Davies were superb as were the actors who played the children.

What a pity Tony had to escape to the USA. Has anything really changed?

A great little Australian Movie

SWIMMING UPSTREAM (2005) *** Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis, Jesse Spencer, Tim Draxl, David Hoflin, Craig Horner, Brittany Byrnes, Deborah Kennedy, Mark Hembrow, Mitchell Dellevergin, Thomas Davidson, Kain O'Keefe, Robert Quinn, Keeara Byrnes. (Dir: Russell Mulcahy)

Rush and Davis give bold performances in this true-life account of Aussie swimming champ Tony Fingleton.

Athletic biographies and films about sports in general seem to keep audiences enthralled as they line up to see them, rooting for the underdog and living vicariously through their triumphs as well as viscerally feeling their emotional (and physical) scars they accumulate in the long and winding road to success.

In the latest true-life account the sport is swimming and the athlete is Australia's national champion Tony Fingleton circa the 1950s-early 1960s, beginning with his humble beginnings as the middle child of a family of five and clearly not his father's favorite as the story proceeds to illustrate just how blunt that fact is with some heartbreaking moments of just how difficult it can be to be a perfect athletic specimen, but an absolute zero in the eyes of a loved one.

Tony's blue-collar working class dad, Harold (a superb Rush in a continuing string of chameleon like turns of late), a man who houses many demons and unleashes his inner fury through bottles of beer , tries his best to provide for his sprawling tight family and although his focus on winning-is-the-only-thing-that-matters view in life has to face his failures every day (he gave up a promising attempt as a professional soccer star by marrying young, and regretting every moment thereafter) in spite of his loving family and long-suffering wife Dora (the ethereally haggard Davis equally top-notch in a semi-low-key performance). His main cause of bitterness is apparently his son Tony's good-natured, loving self that only may mirror the phantoms of what Harold may have been (or could have been) and his reflection is only refracted back with disappointment until one day the young boy and his sibling John announce they can swim very well much to his surprise. Harold sees this magical moment as his ticket by coaching his lads gruelingly to stardom and becomes obsessed in their times by carrying his ubiquitous stop-watch at all times and having the boys go at the crack of dawn every day until they are young men equally scrabbling to make names of themselves (and eventually to disembark their trappings for the real world).

Spencer gives a remarkably effective performance as the tortured Tony (as does Dellevergin as his younger version) attempting to shake off the waves of abuse and loathing from the only person he so desperately wants to make proud of and is ably supported by a more difficult turn by Draxl (and his younger counterpoint Davidson) as John. The two young brothers are thick and thin covering for each other when things get messy yet eventually a wedge is driven between the two by the conniving Harold who will stop at nothing to see his 'dream' the way it should be.

The acting by both Rush and Davis is truly impressive as each manages to avoid making either of their roles true monsters and victims by giving them shades of gray in character and just enough reality to their pre-conceived stereotypes – alcoholic loser and misbegotten abused wife.

Veteran director Mulcahy (HIGHLANDER) has a difficult task in keeping the film's pace relevant to the seemingly endless swim matches and his choice of pulsating music diminishes his clever wipes and split-screens to divvy up the emotional overload his characters are going through. Yet the screenplay by Anthony Fingleton - based on his biography with his younger sister Diane – keeps the storyline real in its brutality and shame.

What easily could have been a waterlogged THE GREAT SANTINI the film achieves the unexpected: sympathy for a loser and new-found respect for a winner.

"Swimming Upstream" reveals an intense dysfunctional psycho drama behind a competitive sport. It is as moving about a macho male athletic culture, here focused on swimming, as "Friday Night Lights" was about football, particularly as dysfunctionally fueled by alcohol.

Geoffrey Rush gives a searing performance as an alcoholic patriarch who arbitrarily plays his sons against each other for his attention and approval.

Judy Davis, who usually masters powerful women, here is memorable as a buffeted mother drained by caring for five children, poverty and her occasionally violent husband.

Claustrophobic family dynamics are well-captured, particularly in showing how childhood experiences shape adults emotionally forever and what was once a refuge becomes torture.

When the sons reach adolescence the screen is filled by blue-eyed Jesse Spencer (he's in a crew-cut with rippling muscles in the pool so much that I didn't recognize him as the very clothed, longish haired doctor in TV's "House") and the young men in small bathing trunks playing his brothers, in heightened scenes of very physical sibling rivalry and closeness.

The visuals and production design well communicate the bloke culture of Brisbane in the 1950's and early 1960's, from the fading docks, to the pubs, to the locker rooms, to the union halls, that is brutally carried into the family.

The shocked smile on Spencer's face as "Tony Fingleton" discovers a wider culture through his swimming, heck with admiring women in it, is heart warming as I thought that if someone doesn't give that guy a hug already I'll reach through the movie screen and do it myself.

Russell Mulcahy's directing, however, frequently undercuts the power, with unnecessary narration and gimmicky camera moves during intense scenes.

The timetable as years go by is a bit confusing, especially as annual tournaments repeat.