Don't be thrown by the cover on this film...it isn't a softcore, national Lampoon film. This movie was quite enjoyable and was a fantastic character study. Several apparently different personalities all bound together by one common link: they never learned to swim and they all are taking swimming lessons from the
same man. This puts a large group of very normal people with normal problems together when they probably never would have met in the first place. Great set up. Great character development. Also, some interesting character growth. The problem lies in the pacing. We move at such a snail's pace that it is hard to keep on. I realize that this is not a thriller or a big budget CGI laden film. This film is solely dependent on the script, the characters, and how well they are portrayed and they are portrayed very well, but it just gets boring.
I have been a huge fan of Paget Brewster since "Huff." The whole cast was great really. A lot of credit for the film's lovability goes to the perfect casting of Brewster and Weixler. "Sometimes characters don't require novelty as long as they feel genuine" and these characters felt wholly genuine, but the pacing keeps it out of the realm of "utterly fantastic."
This is a great example of an indie film that sacrificed nothing on the altar of integrity, but lost some of its audience to being too real and nary a hint of escapism.
October 19, 2008
