PG | 2h 9m | Biopic, Sports | July 19, 2024
The release of “Young Woman and the Sea” in July chummed the waters, if you will, in anticipation of the 2024 Paris Olympics. After watching it, you’ll want to see, in your mind’s eye, Gertrude ”Trudy” Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1926, stand on the podium along with Gabby Thomas, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, and Simone Biles.
Based on sportswriter Glenn Stout’s biography of the same name, “Young Woman and the Sea” was directed by Joachim Ronning, who, having directed “Kon-Tiki,” knows something about filming stories concerning epic navigations of formidable bodies of water.
Disney hasn’t had much good family fare for a while now, but “Young Woman and the Sea” is a throwback. Sort of. Disney’s typically progressive agenda features a heavily feminist-slanted telling, packed with men so insufferably smug and insecure that you simply cannot wait for them to get their noses rubbed in the fact that they got bested by a woman. That said, it’s all rather light-hearted and quite enjoyable.
The Story
Gertrude Ederle (British actress Daisy Ridley, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”) was born in 1905 in New York City, to German immigrant parents. She was a frail child, almost dying from the measles. In the early 20th century, girls weren’t allowed to swim because they were considered much too delicate for such things.
Swimming Lessons
Their mother discovers an underground, indoor pool in a basement boiler room, where hard-nosed but fairSickly Trudy is too weak at first, but coach Epstein makes her earn her spot in the pool by being the boiler-stoking coal gofer. It’s hard to tell whether the boiler heats the pool as well as the whole building, but if it didn’t, that'd be one frigid pool come January.
American women and girls weren’t allowed in public swim competitions, so when an Australian girl’s swim team arrives in Manhattan—Trudy gets a chance to shine. By then, her health had caught up to her inner drive. As high school and collegiate swim teams have enjoyed describing teammates with blazing speed ever since the rock band Deep Purple’s song debuted in 1972, Trudy had morphed into “Smoke on the Water.”
The Rest is History
Trudy’s grand vision in life is to become the first woman to swim the English channel. The menfolk raise a hue and a cry. The nerve! But Trudy stubbornly thumbs her nose at the rampant sexism threatening to drown her dreams.One such goal-blocking man is Jabez Wolffe (Christopher Eccleston), the mustachioed Scottish swim coach assigned to her, who'd previously (and disastrously) coached the women’s Olympic team. Wolffe failed the channel-swimming feat over 20 times himself. This deeply jealous, misogynistic twit of a coach is determined to derail her usurpation of male dominance; at one point, he offers her sleeping pill-laced tea to drink while she’s in the middle of her first channel-swim attempt.
Trudy courageously crawls the 21-mile crossing from coastal France to Dover, England, threading her way through thousands of stinging jellyfish. During the most harrowing portion of the film, she becomes completely disoriented 5 miles from shore in the treacherous “shallows” where the safety tugboat carrying her coach, father, and sister can’t follow her.
Trudy’s parade in New York City was the largest that’s ever been given for any athlete, man or woman. She changed the world of women’s sports forever.
All in all, “Young Woman and the Sea” is an uplifting and inspiring tale with a tried-and-true sports movie formula. Disney presents the story as accessible and family friendly, with a chirpier tone than a more mature biopic would use. That means that Ederle’s later struggles, such as her hearing loss, are glossed over.
As mentioned, “Young Woman and the Sea” is a very likable biopic that is heavy-handed in its reduction of the genuine conflict concerning the gender politics of the day to a facile black-and-white situation. Regardless, it will leave you with a resounding feeling of inspiration, making it nearly impossible not to smile.
