Splish splash I was swimming in a gender dominated participation and proving stereotypes wrong. This is the sort of thing, ‘Woke’ reviewers will try to position the review of this French comedy about a group of men in a synchronised swimming club. They have of course missed the reason that Gilles Lellouche film is worth so much of your time. Fusing the myriad lives of 40 something men, from many different walks of life and how they bond from meeting every week to practice synchronised swimming.
Bertrand (Mathieu Amalric) is in the depths of depression, while looking for something to help him, he finds a group for synchronised swimming. For men that is. In the group is hard nosed Laurent (Guillaume Canet), Warm but friendless Thierry (Philippe Katerine) and sly Marcus (Benoît Poelvoorde). I would commend all of these performers in how they stick with the light hearted comedy, play with the darker elements and still hold up. Gilles Lellouche direction is paramount to this. So is Mathieu Amalric. He has a varied list of films under his belt but with SINK OR SWIM he is able to cast back to the emotion of THE DIVING BELL mixed with the humour of THE GRAND BUDAPEST. He executes the role like a conduit for control. SINK OR SWIM confronts with tenderness and wit, male aging. Getting the notes just right to end up being both intensely funny and ultimately touching.
