Young Woman and the Sea (2024)

On the face of it, it's a bit similar to last year's "Nyad", only I found this to be a more engaging depiction of the story of a young woman determined to struggle against not just the water, but of the societal limitations put upon her sex and assumed about her potential a mere century ago. As a young child, Trudy Ederle contracts measles. The doctor thinks that nothing can be done, but she has no intention of throwing in the towel yet and decides she'd rather have some cheese than a coffin! This illness is taking place against news of a maritime tragedy that saw many women killed. They were afraid to leave the burning ferry boat because they couldn't swim. Trudy wants to learn to swim, her mother wants her to learn to swim - but her father, an immigrant German butcher, is much more conformist. It's not right for women to swim! Now we get our first indication of the strength of mind of the women in this family as, sure enough, mother (Jeanette Hain) finds her and sister "Meg" (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) a women only swimming club run by "Lottie" (Sian Clifford) and next, after some seriously punishing training sessions, she (now Daisy Ridley) has her heart set on the Paris Olympiad. History takes over her story now as we follow this hugely inspirational person who sets out to prove that her sex need be no barrier to her abilities and that with the right support around her, she can accomplish just about anything. A combination of Ridley's enthusiastic and exhausting performance and a strong slew of supporting actors make this a genuinely quite poignant piece of cinema. Not only does it address issues of sexual repression, but also of racial and cultural attitudes that needed looking at from both within and without. Stephen Graham turns out well as the savvy coach Burgess and Kim Bidnia also strikes a fine balance between caring, fearing and inspiring as her father Henry. I am not really a fan of Christopher Eccleston, and his overly hammy depiction of Scotsman Jabez Wolffe didn't quite work for me, but this story is built well from the sand up by Joachim Rønning allowing us to feel some of the emotions running through the veins of this groundbreaking athlete and understand just quite why the public at the time cared, too.