Swimming With Men would like to be the new The Full Monty. Swimming With Men is not the new The Full Monty. Although it does share DNA with the hit 1997 comedy, following as it does a group of disparate yet to varying degrees disconsolate men who find solace and support while performing nearly naked — only this time as a part of an all-male synchronized swimming group. It’s an appealing premise played by an attractive cast featuring many of Britain’s most consistently engaging actors — Rob Brydon, Jane Horrocks, Adeel Ahktar, Daniel Mays, Charlotte Riley, Jim Carter, Thomas Turgoose, Rupert Graves and Nathaniel Parker, to name but eight.
Our woebegone heroes are largely reduced to one-dimensional creations.
So, on paper, a promising prospect indeed. However, Oliver Parker’s (Dad’s Army) film lacks the warmth and depth of its forebear, sunk by thin characterization and plotting. To truly empathise with our band of sad-sack swimmers, we need to know more than a smidgeon of what has brought the respective sadnesses with which they’re struggling — but a smidgeon is all we get, not helped by the fact that the first rule of Swim Club is anonymity; a rule which extends largely to the audience, not just the swimmers’ fellow team members. Given most to work with is Rob Brydon as central figure Eric, weighed down by existential angst as he wrestles with middle age and a seemingly empty marriage, Brydon wringing out as much as possible from the material.
Beyond him, our woebegone heroes are largely reduced to one-dimensional creations, from cheeky young scallywag Tom (This Is England’s wonderful Thomas Turgoose, woefully underused here) to Jim Carter’s lonely widow, Adeel Ahktar’s cagey Kurt and Daniel Mays’ builder-slash-frustrated footballer Colin. Then there are the clichéd female characters, Charlotte Riley’s team instructor — perky cheerleader-esque in her enthusiasm but given little personality beyond that — and Horrocks as Eric’s abrasively stony-hearted wife Heather.
That’s a lot of characters with little in the way of narratives. And while there is certainly a smattering of laughs to be had, the humour is often so clunky as to weigh down the slight tale, and countered by an unsettling undertone of unresolved melancholy. As such, despite the efforts of the cast, come the traditionally rousing finale, it’s hard to muster up much investment in the ensemble’s frailties or fates.