The Swimmers: Medal-worthy

The Swimmers (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, occasionaly profanity, violence and sexual assault

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.9.22

Some people are born with a level of grit, determination, strength and focus that the rest of us can’t even comprehend, let alone emulate.

 

Following railroad tracks to their next destination, and mindful of avoiding soldiers who
would arrest them — or worse — this small group of refugees hopes for the best:
from left, in foreground, Bilal (Elmi Rashid Elmi), Sara (Nathalie Issa), Shada
(Nahel Tzegai, with infant), Yusra (Manal Issa) and Emad (James Krishna Floyd).

Director Sally El Hosaini’s depiction of what Syrian sisters Sara and Yusra Mardini endured, while pursuing their version of the impossible dream, is compelling and impressively inspirational. El Hosaini and co-scripter Jack Thorne had no need to lard actual events with fictionalized melodramatic touches; the truth — adapted from Yusra Mardini’s 2018 autobiography, Butterfly: From Refugee to Olympian — is sufficiently astonishing.

This is one of the rare films that can change hearts and minds, by compartmentalizing a real-world crisis: in this case, the massive refugee crisis that resulted when the 2011 Arab Spring protests ultimately prompted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to brutally crack down on his own citizens.

 

This saga follows that war’s impact on one family, along with some key sidebar relatives and friends.

 

Events begin quietly during Yusra’s 13th birthday party, a cheerfully lively event orchestrated by her parents, Ezzat (Ali Suliman) and Mervat (Kinda Alloush). Ezzat, a former champion swimmer, has become a demanding coach to Yusra and her older sister, Sara; he toasts Yusra’s sporting abilities while Sara wanders into another room and watches a television news report on government protests elsewhere in Damascus.

 

Flash-forward four years. Sara and Yusra (now played by real-life sisters Manal and Nathalie Issa) revel at an outdoor penthouse nightclub where their cousin Nizar (Ahmed Malek) is DJing. They dance blithely, apparently oblivious to the bombs raining down in the distance: a bizarrely callous, modern-day version of fiddling while Rome burns.

 

The dynamic between these sisters is complex; they clearly love and are devoted to each other, but tension is palpable. Sara has become a wild child: reckless, headstrong, unwilling to respect authority. She also  has abandoned her swimming training. Manal Issa gives her a mocking, defiant gaze, as if daring the world to get in her way.

 

Yusra is quieter, cautious and nurturing: forever trying to protect her older sister from her worst instincts. Yusra has maintained her swim training, fixated on one day competing in the Olympics. Nathalie Issa’s expression is frequently troubled, her eyes wide and worried, her posture suggesting vulnerability.