‘Young Woman and the Sea’ Believes the Answer to Addressing Sexism Is Simply Greater Determination
Younger viewers may find the sports biopic inspiring, but Joachim Rønning’s drama is so old-fashioned it’s retrograde.
There’s no shortage of inspiring sports narratives, and I hope there never will be. While there’s a rarified stratum of truly great sports movies, there are also plenty of serviceable, based-on-a-true-story sports dramas about athletes who overcame various odds to become a champion. When told well, these kinds of movies may not leave much of an impression, but it’s nice to have a feel-good picture even if it doesn’t challenge the audience in any significant way. It’s this second tier that director Joachim Rønning seems to be aiming at with his new movie Young Woman and the Sea, and yet he still falls short. Despite running over two hours, the clunky narrative never takes any time to breathe or develop its one-dimensional characters. It is a broad outline of achievement that never deigns to plumb deeper with its central figure. Even worse, the film’s subtext seems to be that in the face of rampant sexism, women must simply try harder to earn the world’s respect as if it shouldn’t be afforded to them simply on the basis of their humanity.
Set in 1926, the film follows the exploits of Trudy Ederle (Daisy Ridley), a young woman from a working-class family who overcame measles at a young age to become a champion swimmer. Trudy continually faces overt sexism from men who are appalled that women would want to compete in sports, and even when she is allowed to participate, these men undercut her by either denying her and her teammates training time and other resources that would allow them to fully realize their talent. Trudy, whose defining (and arguably only) characteristic is her determination, decides that she will become the first woman to swim the English Channel. While her loved ones initially bristle at what seems like a suicidal quest, they soon cheer her on as the world watches to see if Trudy can make history.
Young Woman and the Sea is rated PG, and I don’t want to dismiss that there’s likely appeal here for younger viewers, especially girls, who want to see athletics represented on screen in an inspiring fashion. For kids, you have an inoffensive movie about a young woman who beats the odds and becomes a championship swimmer. Amelia Warner’s music is soaring, the montages are rousing, and if your kids see this movie, they’ll likely want to jump in a pool afterwards to be like Trudy. That’s all well and good for a younger audience, but kids are also just as likely to see Despicable Me 4 and speak minion gibberish for a week. It’s not a major accomplishment for Young Woman and the Sea to make swimming look good.
Where the film starts to lose its appeal, especially for an older viewer like me, is in its approach towards the sexism Trudy faces. The filmmakers seem like they want to position rampant sexism as part of the time. This is a period story, so the clear sexism Trudy faces from James Sullivan (Glenn Fleshler), the head of the Olympic committee, or from coach Jabez Wolffe (Christopher Eccleston), is presented as “of that time,” and that men who would be accepting and encouraging of someone like Trudy, such as her second and better coach Bill Burgess (Stephen Graham), are perceived as oddballs by the culture. In this framing, overt sexism is something that happened, but thanks to women like Trudy and allies like Bill, we overcame it. Jabez doesn’t allow Trudy to eat like an athlete because he wants her to appear svelte for the cameras, so thank goodness men stopped policing women’s bodies in 1926.
Addressing this sexism may have had more relevance if Trudy’s reactions to it amounted to more than steely-eyed determination and swimming well. I don’t doubt that Ederle, like most women then and now, faced a lot of sexism. However, in its attempt to show Trudy overcoming adversity, the film falls into the trap of needing to prove the doubters wrong as if those doubters are acting in good faith. The film unquestionably accepts systemic failures by having Trudy work harder with fewer resources. The head of USA Olympics won’t back your attempt to cross the English Channel? Swim from New York to New Jersey in under three hours to show him you’re a champion. The film’s underlying belief is that Ederle’s accomplishments opened the doors for other women, but it also shrugs off why those doors were closed in the first place, and it never wonders if those doors can be shut again. I suppose if they are, the answer, according to the film, is simply, “more determination.”
The backwards subtext falls in line with a sloppy narrative that doesn’t seem particularly interested in its characters’ lives. It is a plot machine where any character development was left on the cutting room floor. The film’s emotional heart is supposed to be the bond between Trudy and her sister Meg (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), but Meg’s motivations seem dependent on the latest scene. In one montage you can see she’s lost interest in swimming because she would prefer to spend time with her boyfriend, but two scenes later, she resents that Trudy has been invited to swim for Team USA but she hasn’t. Later, Meg says she’s resigned herself to an arraigned marriage, and Trudy would be wise to do the same, but a few scenes later, she’s cheering Trudy on. Again, younger viewers may not mind this, but older audiences may wonder how much the filmmakers really cared about the lives of women when their stories are handled in such a slipshod manner.
There’s still a place for inspirational sports stories, but even decades ago, Young Woman and the Sea would have likely felt outdated compared to something like A League of Their Own where the women have inner lives, strengths and weaknesses, and find metrics of success beyond their athletic field. Trudy Ederle worked hard to make history, but the men who chose to tell her story—director Rønning, screenwriter Jeff Nathanson, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer—appeared to do the bare minimum in slapping together a sports biopic and hoping it would float.