Very well executed

Best movie ever!

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

I just saw this movie, and really enjoyed it. The parts played by Judy Davis and Geoffrey Rush were really superbly played, and it was so factual. I was empathizing with Tony a lot, because he so wanted his father to approve of him, but the father wouldn't, or couldn't. I too, like the above comment, was disappointed that he just went to the USA, and I felt that he should have continued on with the swimming and going for the gold to represent his country, Australia. He could have gone to the US at another time, because he was still young yet. But an enjoyable movie about perseverance in spite of disappointments and a sad home life.

If released a good few years ago this movie would probably be up for Golden Globes and Oscars - at least for its cast and writer. But the basic theme and plotting, even if it is based on real lives, is so familiar that lacklustre reviews mean its presence has barely been detected as a tiny blip on the radar of the average movie goer. I nearly missed this one, and clearly most have.Which is a shame.Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis give superb performances and have the basic material that helps them show off their talents, while newcomers (at least to the movies) Jesse Spencer and Tony Draxl provide the eye candy that should, in theory, put plenty of teenage girl bums on seats. That they, unlike say Orlando Bloom, can also act and act pretty well, is an added bonus.The problem is we've seen it all before and it all comes over as a bit of a copy of better movies we've seen. Direction is rather pedestrian and where it tries to break out of the mould it fails (in my view). Part of the problem is the "Swimming" of the title - this isn't a movie about swimming, it's a movie about the destruction of a family and getting away from that destruction. But the swimming scenes are key to that story and here the director, in recognising that, and the problems in showing such scenes to the average viewer, takes us out of the period drama and suddenly immerses us in "24"-style split screen mode and thumping music to artificially generate excitement. This may be considered a brave, even innovative move by some, but resorting to such artificiality by using the obvious tempo of a modern music beat to get the heart pumping and throwing multiple images at the eye is usually a sign that the truth at the core just isn't really working - at least for me. Such effects cheapen the film somewhat and the effect is only exacerbaged by the movie's biggest mistake - the clichéd use of an overused classical piece of music (don't know the name - I keep wanting to say 'Barber's Adagio for Strings' as was used in 'Platoon' but I don't think it's that!) suddenly used at the crucial final scene between the central character and his father. Oh dear! Lose three points for originality and taking the 'make it cloying, and sentimental by poking the audience with a stick' route! A real shame because this is a VERY GOOD movie, well worth 90 minutes of anybody's time just for Rush's performance alone, it's just not a GREAT one.The final, and sadly captionless, image of the two brothers 'good luck' hand shake frozen freeze-frame over the 'where are they now' messages at the end of the movie provide the saddest coda of all (albeit one touched on more by the deleted scenes on the DVD and the comment made at a screening by Fingleton that he and his brother have not spoken since) stays with you after the movie is over.Recommended and well worth a viewing/purchase on DVD, but in some ways a missed opportunity at greatness.

Wow, I thought this movie was awesome. Seeing as though this was the first role I had seen Jesse Spencer in since his more juvenile role in Neighbours, this movie hit me hard. THis movie was surprisingly refreshing as I am so caught up in the 'box office smashes' I don't usually feel a message being portrayed through movies so strongly. I'm not saying that the hit movies don't portray meaningful messages, its just that this one hit me hard. What made it even more enjoyable was to see how this Australian movie (I think it was based in Brisbane, I'm not sure) had been successful overseas. Overall, I thought it was a fantastic movie portraying the hardships of life.

SWIMMING UPSTREAM (2005) *** Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis, Jesse Spencer, Tim Draxl, David Hoflin, Craig Horner, Brittany Byrnes, Deborah Kennedy, Mark Hembrow, Mitchell Dellevergin, Thomas Davidson, Kain O'Keefe, Robert Quinn, Keeara Byrnes. (Dir: Russell Mulcahy)Rush and Davis give bold performances in this true-life account of Aussie swimming champ Tony Fingleton.Athletic biographies and films about sports in general seem to keep audiences enthralled as they line up to see them, rooting for the underdog and living vicariously through their triumphs as well as viscerally feeling their emotional (and physical) scars they accumulate in the long and winding road to success. In the latest true-life account the sport is swimming and the athlete is Australia's national champion Tony Fingleton circa the 1950s-early 1960s, beginning with his humble beginnings as the middle child of a family of five and clearly not his father's favorite as the story proceeds to illustrate just how blunt that fact is with some heartbreaking moments of just how difficult it can be to be a perfect athletic specimen, but an absolute zero in the eyes of a loved one.Tony's blue-collar working class dad, Harold (a superb Rush in a continuing string of chameleon like turns of late), a man who houses many demons and unleashes his inner fury through bottles of beer , tries his best to provide for his sprawling tight family and although his focus on winning-is-the-only-thing-that-matters view in life has to face his failures every day (he gave up a promising attempt as a professional soccer star by marrying young, and regretting every moment thereafter) in spite of his loving family and long-suffering wife Dora (the ethereally haggard Davis equally top-notch in a semi-low-key performance). His main cause of bitterness is apparently his son Tony's good-natured, loving self that only may mirror the phantoms of what Harold may have been (or could have been) and his reflection is only refracted back with disappointment until one day the young boy and his sibling John announce they can swim very well much to his surprise. Harold sees this magical moment as his ticket by coaching his lads gruelingly to stardom and becomes obsessed in their times by carrying his ubiquitous stop-watch at all times and having the boys go at the crack of dawn every day until they are young men equally scrabbling to make names of themselves (and eventually to disembark their trappings for the real world).Spencer gives a remarkably effective performance as the tortured Tony (as does Dellevergin as his younger version) attempting to shake off the waves of abuse and loathing from the only person he so desperately wants to make proud of and is ably supported by a more difficult turn by Draxl (and his younger counterpoint Davidson) as John. The two young brothers are thick and thin covering for each other when things get messy yet eventually a wedge is driven between the two by the conniving Harold who will stop at nothing to see his 'dream' the way it should be. The acting by both Rush and Davis is truly impressive as each manages to avoid making either of their roles true monsters and victims by giving them shades of gray in character and just enough reality to their pre-conceived stereotypes – alcoholic loser and misbegotten abused wife. Veteran director Mulcahy (HIGHLANDER) has a difficult task in keeping the film's pace relevant to the seemingly endless swim matches and his choice of pulsating music diminishes his clever wipes and split-screens to divvy up the emotional overload his characters are going through. Yet the screenplay by Anthony Fingleton - based on his biography with his younger sister Diane – keeps the storyline real in its brutality and shame. What easily could have been a waterlogged THE GREAT SANTINI the film achieves the unexpected: sympathy for a loser and new-found respect for a winner.