‘Young Woman And The Sea’: Review

Dir: Joachim Ronning. US. 2023. 129mins

Stricken with measles as a girl, Gertrude ‘Trudy’ Ederle was not expected to live a long life. But she was a fighter, which was never more apparent than when she shocked the world in 1926 by swimming the English Channel, breaking the men’s record in the process. Director Joachim Ronning and star Daisy Ridley celebrate this resilient figure in Young Woman And The Sea, a likeable, frictionless biopic that marvels at her achievement but prefers to skim the surface.

A likeable, frictionless biopic that marvels at her achievement but prefers to skim the surface

Unlike last year’s Oscar-nominated Nyad, about controversial long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad, this crowd-pleasing picture fails to sufficiently dramatise its protagonist (who died in 2003, aged 98) or adequately convey the seeming impossibility of the task she undertook. Opening May 31 in the UK and US, and bouyed by Ridley’s star power, Young Woman And The Sea may appeal to viewers uninterested in kiddie fare or action blockbusters; specifically, older audiences craving an uncomplicated inspirational tale. Comparisons to Nyad are inevitable — both true-life films build their third acts around gruelling solo swims — but with little buzz around this project, streaming may be safer waters.

The daughter of German immigrants, Trudy Ederle (Ridley) grows up in Coney Island in the early 20th century. After surviving a nearly fatal case of measles, she wants to become a swimmer, alongside her loving older sister Meg (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), but the sexism of the time prevents her from being taken seriously. Eventually, though, Ederle proves her talent in the pool, landing a spot on the US team for the 1924 Summer Olympics. But then she turns her attention to an even bolder ambition: swimming the dangerous English Channel.

Before embarking on a solo filmmaking career, Ronning (Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil) teamed with Espen Sandberg on the nautical-themed films Kon-Tiki and Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. So it is not surprising that the Norwegian director has a feel for the beauty and forbidding power of the ocean, which for Ederle was too seductive to resist. Ronning surrounds his main character with colourful supporting players — including Meg, who comes to realise that she is not nearly as athletic as her younger sister, their strong-willed mother (Jeanette Hain) and conservative father (Kim Bodnia) — who help flesh out the story, illustrating the warm community that rallied around her. Cobham-Hervey is especially touching as Meg, a woman pressured to marry to help sustain her impoverished family. 

But whether it’s Amelia Warner’s excessive orchestral score or the familiar beats in Jeff Nathanson’s script, Young Woman And The Sea often feels too tidy, delivering its uplifting message without specificity or insight. Ederle’s recovery from childhood illness hints at an unbreakable spirit but the picture rarely investigates that dynamic afterward, robbing the character of complexity. Ridley conveys an appealing resilience, but the performance has a nagging flatness. Beyond enjoying angering those who assume women swimmers can’t compete with men, there is little indication of why Ederle is drawn to such a potentially fatal quest — indeed, she’s little more than a dully inspiring cipher.

As Young Woman And The Sea chronicles Ederle’s attempts to swim the English Channel, Ronning struggles to make her harrowing journey gripping. Ederle faced her share of life-or-death obstacles out on the water — swarms of jellyfish, the darkness of night, the possibility that her body would fail her — but the smoothness of Ronning’s execution undercuts the pain and suffering she endured. Ederle traversed 21 miles of ocean over the span of nearly 15 hours, and yet Young Woman And The Sea fails to put the viewer through an emotional wringer, infrequently hinting at how such an undertaking would impact a person physically or spiritually. By shying away from demonstrating the degree of hardship Ederle underwent to make history, the film shortchanges the catharsis it seeks in its final passages. 

If Ridley and Cobham-Hervey’s sisterly rapport is the film’s strongest element, the rest of the ensemble errs on the side of being a bit one-dimensional. Hain delights as the no-nonsense mother until she becomes too broad in the film’s later sections, while Christopher Eccleston is unable to make his patronising coach enjoyably hissable. These limitations would be less irksome if Ridley had been given the space to really explore this indomitable force. Trudy Ederle achieved sports immortality by swimming all the way from France to England, but her biopic is disinclined to go very far to understand her.