Swimming Upstream
by Russell Mulcahy
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Deborah Kennedy, Geoffrey Rush, Jesse Spencer, Judy Davis, Tim DraxlDirector: Russell Mulcahy
Brand: Team Marketing
Producer: Andrew Mason
Producer: Anthony Fingleton
Writer: Anthony Fingleton
Producer: Carol Hughes
Producer: Howard Baldwin
Producer: Karen Elise Baldwin
Writer: Diane Fingleton
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 114 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-05-31
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: © 2005 MGM Home Entertainment, LLC
Movie Reviews of Swimming Upstream
Movie Review: Tragedy and Success and Tragedy
Summary: 5 Stars
Sometimes, success is both caused by and causes great tragedy. That seems to be the case in Swimming Upstream, a biopic based on the life of Anthony (Tony) Fingleton, who won a silver medal in the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games and could have been on the Australian team for the '64 olympics, but chose to attend Harvard instead.
The older Tony is played by Jesse Spencer, who gives off that wholesome feeling one associates with Cary Elwes or Richard Thomas. (The younger Tony is played by Mitchell Dellevergin.) Tony is the second of five kids in a family that leads an existence forever short of money. His dad, Harold (Geoffrey Rush) is often on strike at the docks, and his mom, Dora (Judy Davis), depends on scraps of overrun fabric and a tab at the local grocery store in order to make ends meet. We learn right at the beginning that life with Dad is completely dependent on his mood and how much he's been drinking. Dad might show some rare affection, but he is just as likely to give you or Mom a quick backhand across the face.
As if life with Dad wasn't hard enough, Tony has to deal with an older, bullying brother, played in the younger case by a very frightening Kain O'Keeffe. He is named Harold Jr. after his father, and he inflicts on Tony a miniature version of Dad's abuse. In one scene of sibling jealousy, Harold Jr. slams a piano keyboard cover down on Tony's fingers. When Tony runs out and tells Dad, Dad doesn't punish Harold Jr., but instead has them put on boxing gloves, which, of course, leads to Tony getting double punishment. At this point we are wondering what is going on with Dad. Is he just generally sadistic? Or does he not like Tony specifically? (We will later get hints that something tragic happened in his childhood, perhaps sexual, and that he wasn't strong enough to fight off the "animals.")
Tony's one solace from these abuses is swimming at the local swimming pool with his brother, John, played by Thomas Davidson and Tim Draxl. John is Tony's supporter. John sees Dad's abuse of Tony and says it's not right. John is the one that, during another of Dad's tirades about Tony's being a "poofter," tells Dad that he should come and see them swim, because John knows that Tony really shines in this area.
When Dad does come and sees how good Tony is, suddenly Dad becomes interested in their lives. The next day he begins crack of dawn and evening training sessions. Soon they win their first event. This begins a five-year period of their lives where things are going well. They win every event they enter, with John doing the crawl events and Tony doing the backstroke events. The thing is though, John is really the better swimmer. He wins his events by great distances, whereas Tony wins just barely. They keep family peace by having them compete in separate events. That is until Dad begins pitting brother against brother.
One day Tony shows up to a meet to find John three lanes down from him. Tony loses his first race ever and this leads to great family conflict. Why couldn't John have just stayed in his own events? It will forever disrupt their once perfect friendship.
The rest of the movie, the rest of their lives, is a back and forth between John staying out of Tony's races and sometimes being in them. It is when John stays out that Tony becomes national champion. But it is a great personal sacrifice to John, who sees all the attention Tony is getting in newsreels and from reporters. He had asked Mom before the race, "Don't you want me to win?" "Of course I do," she says. "But I don't want Tony to lose."
So this is the great tragedy of the film and their lives. Only by one brother making a sacrifice does the other brother achieve his dreams. And the biggest tragedy may be the one unstated at the end of the film. We get life updates at the credits. They inform us that Tony graduated from Harvard and lives with his wife and children in America. They inform us that his parents have remained friends. And that is all. There is no update on any other family member. There is no update on John. And it leaves us with the feeling of unspeakable tragedy.
Summary of Swimming Upstream
UPC: 27616927354As the target of his father Harold's (Geoffrey Rush) drunken abuse; young Tony Fingleton (Jesse Spencer) escapes to the underwater solitude of the local pool; where he aspires to win his father's love by becoming a national swimming champion. But when his cruel father pits Tony against his own brother in a competition to make the Olympic team; Tony must find the courage to swim his way to victory... and out of his father's emotionally crippling net.