The recent wave of tech-oriented origin sagas — 2023’s Blackberry and Tetris, and their ancestors, 2015’s Steve Jobs and 2010’s The Social Network — share an obvious characteristic: They’re all about young white guys, often working in a gender-hostile environment far closer to a frat house than a business office.
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| Having arrived as Texas' Southern Methodist University with the goal of getting sorority and franternity gals and guys to sign up for their new dating app, Whitney (Lily James, right) and Tisha (Myha'la) wonder where to start. |
All of which makes director Rachel Lee Goldenberg’s Swiped a breath of fresh air, since it giddily traces the rise, fall and rebirth of Whitney Wolfe Herd, who at the age of 31 became the youngest woman to take a company public, and also the youngest self-made billionaire.
(Clever title, just in passing.)
While fresh-out-of-college Whitney Wolfe obviously had some character shortcomings — chiefly naïvete and an overly trusting nature — she was then, and remains now, a rigorously honorable individual who has made a career of Doing The Right Thing, particularly on behalf of women.
Lily James’ performance gives Wolfe just the right blend of intelligence, breathless enthusiasm, sharp entrepreneurial impulses and an impressive ability to think outside the box.
Along with an unfortunate level of vulnerability, and a lamentable willingness to think the best of somebody, long past the point where self-preservation instincts should have kicked in.
But that comes a bit later. Goldenberg’s script, —co-written with Bill Parker and Kim Caramele — begins in 2012, as 22-year-old Wolfe tries to hustle her way into a sponsorship during a gathering of tech entrepreneurs and investors. She catches the attention of Sean Rad (Ben Schnetzer), one of several innovators brainstorming concepts in the Hatch Labs “incubator.”
Impressed by Wolfe’s enthusiasm and innovative suggestions, Rad puts her on his Cardify start-up. That’s just one of many potential projects in the Hatch Labs sandbox, and her attention soon turns to an embryonic dating app thus far known as MatchBox: a name that Rad dislikes. Given that existing dating apps are made for — and mostly used by — fortysomethings or older, Rad wants a catchy name for an alternative aimed at twentysomethings.
During a tempestuous meeting that typifies the mosh pit, dog-eat-dog behavior of her primarily male colleagues, Wolfe suggests Tinder. Delighted by this, Rad makes her the app’s vice president of marketing.
The additional all-important innovation comes from JB (Ian Colletti), who cleverly demonstrates what will become “the swipe.”
By this point, Hatch Labs’ toxic male culture is blindingly obvious. Women aren’t merely a tiny minority; their input is either ignored or snatched by a guy who makes the same suggestion, but louder, thereby gaining the desired attention. Wolfe’s key female allies are the meek, mousy Beth (Mary Neely) and shrewd, contemplative Tisha (Myha’la).
The latter, destined to become Wolfe’s best friend, sums up their work environment with the film’s sharpest one-liner: “a bunch of white dudes not liking it when I call them on their bullshit.”
Tisha is a marvelous character, and Myha’la plays her well. Unlike Beth, who seems unable to stand up for herself, Tisha recognizes when she’s being played or overlooked, and we get a sense that she’s notching an invisible scorecard, against the day when she’ll finally make a change.
She’s also the only person able to call Wolfe on her bullshit.
Getting Tinder into the hands of their target audience is the next challenge, prompting an exhilarating sequence fueled by Chanda Dancy’s lively score. Wolfe and Tisha head to Texas’ Southern Methodist University, where they barnstorm sorority meetings by claiming all the hot frat guys are on the app ... which turns out to be true only after Wolfe charges over to the nearest fraternity house, and gets them signed on by claiming all the hot sorority women are on it.
Similar invasions of the Greek community on colleges throughout the country have electrifying results, prompting Rad to elevate Wolfe to co-founder status.
Then she makes the mistake of starting a relationship with fellow co-founder Justin Mateen (Jackson White, who oozes insincerity).
It ultimately doesn’t go well, after which Wolfe’s attempt to focus exclusively on their work relationship makes matters worse.
At this point, it’s essential to mention that the real-life Wolfe Herd was unable to participate in the crafting of this film, due to a non-disclosure agreement she signed during the out-of-court settlement of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Tinder in 2014.
As a result, key elements here are imagined, as indicated by a text disclaimer that opens and closes the film. Wolfe, Rad and Mateen are actual people; Tisha and Beth are fabricated. Wolfe really did orchestrate the aforementioned college marketing effort, but day-to-day activity at Hatch Labs and Tinder — while very likely close to accurate — are not the result of eyewitness testimony.
On the other hand, Mateen’s relentless barrage of increasingly hostile, nasty and demeaning texts, following their break-up, is 100 percent accurate; they’re public record from the 2014 lawsuit. Goldenberg therefore had plenty to work with, when helping White shape this truly horrible jerk (and goodness, he’s a sick puppy).
Dan Stevens has fun with his role as Russian-born British tech guru Andrey Andreev (also an authentic individual), founder of the international dating app Badoo, who courts Wolfe twice: pre- and post-lawsuit. The latter offer comes at a point when Wolfe is at the lowest possible ebb, thanks to a legal hiccup that would have broken lesser mortals.
Coral Peña delivers a key role as (fictitious) Marta Madina, an ambitious Forbes reporter — similarly overlooked by her male superiors — who subsequently runs with her assignment to cover the increasingly toxic world of online dating apps. She stands in for the many investigative journalists who found plenty of meat in this wild saga.
And I’d love to believe that Wolfe met her future husband, Michael Herd (Pierson Fodé), as depicted here ... but it’s probably too meet-cute to be true.
James persuasively navigates her character’s wild emotional arcs: delight at her initial luck, giddy with the flush of success, disbelief — then shock — as the victim of betrayal, and self-destructive withdrawal after everything goes wrong. Most crucially, once back in the game, James sells Wolfe’s grim determination to make a difference, thereby becoming a force for female empowerment.
That’s the image Wolfe Herd continues to project to this day, and definitely the message Goldenberg wants viewers to take from her film. Enough actual fact is present here, to justify the fabricated characters and encounters as reasonable dramatic license.
On top of which, Goldenberg and editor Julia Wong maintain an always engaging pace. I’m not sure the result is “entertaining” — the second act is very hard to endure — but it’s consistently fascinating.
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