ShangLuda Admirable film.

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU A small film about an Australian family. Supposedly a real family. But you never know. To get out of the dregs of the working class in Australia, dockworker is the father, out of a family dominated by an alcoholic father who had too many children, but in those days after the second world war it was the norm, and to do it with glory and fame, that's the objective of Tony. He did it, that young son of that family who liked the piano, who loved swimming but only had his escape in mind, becoming the best in order to get to Harvard on a full scholarship. And he did it for sure. The film insists a lot on the rivalry between the two brothers pushed by the father into swimming, and swimming the same style. The father prefers the other son and gets berserk when it is Tony who wins, and that will precipitate the end. Tony's success provides him with the scholarship he wanted and he can go and swimming becomes an exacting hobby since swimming brought him what he wanted and he does not need it any more. The rivalry between the two brothers is pathetic. The father is a disaster of a father. But the escape of Tony is just an escape and does not bring much sympathy. He just goes away. And he drops the tool he worked on for twelve years or even maybe more once he has reached the object of his desire. Something is missing at the end: I guess real life is not always as much fun as a good film and does not make more than average films.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

Ian Smith If released a good few years ago this movie would probably be up for Golden Globes and Oscars - at least for its cast and writer. But the basic theme and plotting, even if it is based on real lives, is so familiar that lacklustre reviews mean its presence has barely been detected as a tiny blip on the radar of the average movie goer. I nearly missed this one, and clearly most have.Which is a shame.Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis give superb performances and have the basic material that helps them show off their talents, while newcomers (at least to the movies) Jesse Spencer and Tony Draxl provide the eye candy that should, in theory, put plenty of teenage girl bums on seats. That they, unlike say Orlando Bloom, can also act and act pretty well, is an added bonus.The problem is we've seen it all before and it all comes over as a bit of a copy of better movies we've seen. Direction is rather pedestrian and where it tries to break out of the mould it fails (in my view). Part of the problem is the "Swimming" of the title - this isn't a movie about swimming, it's a movie about the destruction of a family and getting away from that destruction. But the swimming scenes are key to that story and here the director, in recognising that, and the problems in showing such scenes to the average viewer, takes us out of the period drama and suddenly immerses us in "24"-style split screen mode and thumping music to artificially generate excitement. This may be considered a brave, even innovative move by some, but resorting to such artificiality by using the obvious tempo of a modern music beat to get the heart pumping and throwing multiple images at the eye is usually a sign that the truth at the core just isn't really working - at least for me. Such effects cheapen the film somewhat and the effect is only exacerbaged by the movie's biggest mistake - the clichéd use of an overused classical piece of music (don't know the name - I keep wanting to say 'Barber's Adagio for Strings' as was used in 'Platoon' but I don't think it's that!) suddenly used at the crucial final scene between the central character and his father. Oh dear! Lose three points for originality and taking the 'make it cloying, and sentimental by poking the audience with a stick' route! A real shame because this is a VERY GOOD movie, well worth 90 minutes of anybody's time just for Rush's performance alone, it's just not a GREAT one.The final, and sadly captionless, image of the two brothers 'good luck' hand shake frozen freeze-frame over the 'where are they now' messages at the end of the movie provide the saddest coda of all (albeit one touched on more by the deleted scenes on the DVD and the comment made at a screening by Fingleton that he and his brother have not spoken since) stays with you after the movie is over.Recommended and well worth a viewing/purchase on DVD, but in some ways a missed opportunity at greatness.

vaynor In the 1980's there was a long series of Australian films shown on British television - BBC2. After a long diet of Hollywood rubbish it was simply marvellous to see one excellent film after another. The films were mainly funded by public money and i suspect that there are few other countries were the public funding of a film industry has produced such a rich output of world standard. Certainly not in the UK where our native film industry is almost constantly swamped by Hollywood formula movies that dumb down the intelligence of audiences worldwide. in the UK just an occasional Brit's funded classic emerges from the mire. Swimming Upstream is a worthy successor to the Australian films of that early period and i commend it for your viewing without exception.It is the finest performance amongst many for Judy Davis. Geoffrey Rush is utterly convincing as the hard drinking hard thinking Australian father of two sons both with swimming ability. It is an open indictment of the traditional hard edged primeval machismo of Australian male society yet not without understanding and sympathy of that dog breeds dog condition. male brutality breeding male brutality goes hand in hand with indications of the impact of job insecurity and the poverty of families that result from such circumstances. This movie is an inspirational beacon of how sport and in this case swimming in particular can provide a release from such pressures. For some perhaps even a road to freedom and a sense of personal worth thus helping to breech the cycle of brutality associated with traditional male behaviour in Australia. Australia is still a world class producer of thinking mans cinema.

Purity_of_Essence87 That just about sums up this film. Beautiful. What it depicts may not be, but it's portrayal certainly is not even given justice in words. Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis were incredible. Had the film only featured the two of them, I think it still would've been amazing. Jesse Spencer also performed wonderfully, especially for such a young actor. Incredibly gifted, the three of them.My warning is this: this is not even close to a comedy and I think it's a highly emotional movie. Somewhat of a roller-coaster in that aspect. But worth every minute of film. It has just been moved to one of my favourite movies, and is now one of my favourite Geoffrey Rush movies up there with Shine, Elizabeth, and Pirates.Just see it.