Alicia I love this movie so much

BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

randeemia Sway Lake and summer go together like sun and hammocks .. or martinis and olives. Ari Gold's The Song of Sway Lake was actually released on June 21, the first day of summer! Location? A swanky lake house in the Adirondacks -- a dazzling paradise for swell-egant parties of the New York jazz-age upper crust. Sway. It's not a common word but it conjures up sensual images of hips, dancing, bourbon and Gershwin. It could mean swing, undulate, guide, persuade. From the opening, rather erotic, underwater scene, The Song of Sway Lake blends the dreamy and the realistic, the mystical and the practical, blurring the lines between the ephemeral and the concrete, the past and the now. The first plunge into the lake is both a dip into misty memory and a crisp splash to erase it. The cinematic period piece makes the viewer feel as if he/she is floating back in time...hearing the silver tones of Ethan Gold's mesmerizing melody, crooned by both John Grant and the Staves (Andrews Sisters reincarnated) is almost like being drawn in by the Sirens -- only we're not in Ancient Greece. We're not even in the 1940's. We're back in the 1990's...but completely sweetened by reminiscence.In fact, reminiscence permeates the film, from plot to soundtrack. From the opening montage, one feels the pull (dare I say sway) of a time gone by, hovering in a '40's haze. Ethan's music is as haunting as the film - it's a blend of misty and crisp. Cole Porter or Ethan Gold ? The soundtrack title song wafts through the film with charcoal smokiness. I truly can't get the Song of Sway Lake melody out of my head -- nor do I want to. It's totally addictive and liquid like the lake, yet solid like a long-lasting sliver of art, rock or humanity. As I see it, there are two types of people: those who are nostalgic and those who aren't. Proust nailed it with his Madeleine moment. With Song of Sway Lake, filmmaker Ari gold and twin brother, composer Ethan Gold appear to be members of the former club. A maestro of cinema, Ari paints the screen with wide, elegant brushstrokes of memory, sprinkled with speckles of here-and-now. Plot? Jazz music collector Ollie Sway (the soul-searching, fiery Rory Culkin), grandson of Charlie (divinely timeless, elegant Mary Beth Peil), the owner of the magical house on Sway Lake, is on a mission to find a valuable record -- the only pressed 78 recording of her wedding song. He enlists his rough-around-the-edges Russian drifter friend (charming Robert Sheehan) to help steal the record from his wealthy grandmother 's estate. There's even a rather enchanting if offbeat, romantic seesaw sway between Charlie and her grandson's comrade. Theme? The tug between grasping tidbits of our past, archiving our detailed lives vs. letting go, living in the present. Style? Eric Rohmer meets Wes Anderson.The Brazilians think that melancholy and bliss are connected. Perhaps the Gold brothers are part Brazilian --the translucent lake scintillates with the fragility of life and the permanence of death -- the fascination with murkiness and fear of finality. Ultimately, Song of Sway Lake glistens. Like our lives, it is layered with dissonance and harmony, raw in texture. It is both evocative and haunting.

aschartoff Ari Gold (Adventures of Power) is a risk-taking art-making movie director. In a departure from his earlier work, The Song of Sway Lake is interested in human relationships, in the power of nostalgia and loss, and quite a bit more. It's a film that puts emotion before all else; and Gold, who also co-wrote the screenplay, realizes how places and objects, and especially music from the past can transport you and, like the central character, Ollie (Rory Culkin) can even get too strong a hold. Ollie returns to the lake house where his family has lived for generations and where his own father committed suicide some years earlier. He hopes to find an old record album that is a prized possession, which contains secrets and clues form his family's past, but is buried among the tons of albums and other collectibles stored in the vast house. Ari brings a friend along to keep him company, another lost soul named Nikolai, who seems to fit right into the property that sits on Sway Lake, like a hand in an old glove. It isn't until Ollie's grandmother Charlotte "Charlie" Sway shows up that things get very complicated. Ollie's is stuck in the past and this clashes with his present. it prevents him from growing up and from moving on with his life. Even during his stay in the increasingly busier lake house, he forms a romance with a local young lady, but his ability to connect always seems hampered by the weight of the past. The film itself almost feels like a gift from the past, it seems too overly earnest at moments and tapping into some vein that is dried out in these more cynical times. It's a movie that might have been made just around the time when Ronald Reagan came into office, the end of the innocence, as one singer song writer put it a while back. Youth is often difficult to leave behind as it is, let alone with you lose a parent and a way of life. When it's just snatched away from you. Some of this pain is palpable in Gold's movie. And you can hear it in the brilliant soundtrack composed by Ethan Gold, Ari's brother and collaborator.Finally, it would be a shame not to mention the that the film contains the great actor Elizabeth Pena's final performance on film. It's a hard thing not to feel that loss as well as you watch this singularly unique film.

C-movies The Song of Sway Lake is a film written by Ari Gold and Elizabeth Bull and directed by Ari Gold. It's a beautiful, moving film which has to be seen. There are lots of powerful feelings, an amazing performance from the actors, some stunning landscapes and incredible musics. It's impossible not loving it and not being touched.After his father's suicide, a young record collector named Ollie Sway (played by Rory Culkin) returns to the family lake house with his Russian friend Nikolai (Played by Robert Sheehan) to steal a precious record. One day, an unexpected visit from Ollie's grandmother Charlie Sway(Played by Mary Beth Peil) disturbs their search. The Song of Sway Lake is full of nostalgia. Everyone is looking backward, but with a different view. Charlie is like stuck in the past. Mary Beth Peil managed to bring all the sensibility into her character. She is superb and intriguing. Ollie brings the dark nostalgia for things he's never experienced from the past generations. Rory Culkin was perfect to make this. He can bring the pain but he keeps it into himself. He's quiet and thinks a lot. An interesting character is also Nikolai played by Robert Sheehan. He's someone very specific and a bit uncomfortable. He has lots of charm and looks to be perfect. But we can also feel some suspicion against him. Robert Sheehan managed this so incredibly, with an amazing performance. The landscapes and the lake are stunning. The colours can be warm to reflect the beautiful nostalgia, dreams and melancholy of Charlie. But Colours can also be dark to show the dark side of Ollie's nostalgia. The music is a big part of the film. It makes the Sway lake place as a dream, full of elements from the past. It also shows the big connection with the music of Ollie and his father.The Song of Sway Lake is a film we can revisit because there are lots of messages. It's also very interesting to work on the story, the place, the lake and the characters which are all hiding secrets from the past shown from different angles because of the three differents generations. Ari Gold put all his talent into this film and the result is amazing! It's a wonderful movie which has to be shared and seen!

Reid Gagle This is a good movie, with several well-defined and strongly portrayed characters. The first few minutes of the movie were the weakest, with some voice-over and some scenes from the past that would have been better presented as flashbacks later in the movie, once we are invested in the characters and the story.Recommended.Note. It was a pleasant surprise to see Elizabeth Pena in a new movie, three years after her untimely death. It was a small role, but one with heart, worthy of her.