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A review of the movie the Big Bad Swim by Joseph Jagde
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A review of the movie the Big Bad Swim |
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Entertainment,Art and Culture
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The movie revolves around a swim class, adjacent to a high school, where people from various walks of life come together for a regular swim class. Two central characters are Amy, a 30ish high school math teacher, and Jordan. Both women are attractive and have a degree of athleticism. Amy is having trouble with her marriage to her husband Paul, who is also a teacher at the same school, and seeing a comely women teacher down the hall. Amy, seems to have a degree of sternness, coming across as if she would be somewhat unapproachable, a hard to get type person. She seems to typify a person that is attractive, but would come across as standoffish. She seeks out the friendship of Jordan, who is approximately ten years younger, thru the class. Jordan, seems mature and with a good head on her shoulders, but is working as a blackjack dealer at the Mohegan Sun and moonlights giving lap dances to guys for the extra cash. Both women seem to have a little bit of an eye on the 29 year old swim class teacher, Noah , but don’t fawn over him and keep the focus on the swimming. Noah is exceedingly professional and helpful in his giving of the class and in trying to encourage one particular lagging student who doesn’t even want to get in the water, not really knowing how to float. Amy, while showing a high degree of competency as a high school math teacher, and one great scene shows her and just the white blackboard with her math formulas in the background, seemingly saying that she has it all down pat in this forum, but she is almost staying there in her expertise and this is a type of hideout for her. The seems to be a running theme with several of the characters, a high degree of competency in a main area, but once they go outside that area, they aren’t as sure of themselves. Amy, with her marriage at a standstill, goes to the Casino and meets a charming but slightly fly by night type of guy that she commences an affair with. Her initial fear in going into this shows on her face, although he seems like more of a pleasant person than her husband but doesn’t seem to explain himself fully even as to what he does for a living. Her hesitation is interestingly portrayed and it is hard for her to admit she wants this moment.. That this man is much more charming and looks and acts more pleasant then her husband, seems to represent the general direction Amy would like to head in now, figuring that her recent experiences haven't generated anything like that for her. In a pretty funny scene, Amy is with the principal of the school, who becomes quite leering in a humorous sort of way as they first sort out their business together and then he reverses and outright propositions her, despite a rather obvious mismatch.. He seems to represent the authority figure that is so ready to chastise, but is actually quite the hypocrite to comedic proportions. Between this and her less then sympathetic and coolly distant soon to be ex husband, she continues to display an overall flight to congeniality, even if this is an imperfect and meandering flight. But it is especially fun to follow in that Amy herself seems like the successful business woman type with a touchy exterior and the ability to present that side as needed, but deep down she has had enough. She also shows some neediness not only in her approach to the affair but in her seeking the friendship of Jordan. As she befriends Jordan, a couple of scenes seem to show that there might be an actual physical attraction to Jordan, and there did appear to be an undertone of an physical attraction on both their parts, but she doesn’t seek to act on it or point blank say it, as she is more concerned with the friendship than anything else. Noah later stumbles into the club where Jordan gives lap dances, he is embarrassed to be there, but they go through with the dance. Noah, despite being the All American type, seems to have a lonely personal life walking the dog by himself and his personal life just doesn’t seem to be working. Jordan, despite being younger than Noah and Amy, seems to have a personal presence that even usurps them to where at times they seem to be flocking to her. Jordan and Amy go on a long run, as again the film highlights athletic type get together whether it be the swim or another type of athletic meeting, and both women are looking that way in their jogging outfits. Amy begins to tire later in the run and they stop and talk. Amy suggests another more conventional job to Jordan and Jordan feels greatly offended and takes this as a put down. Amy immediately tries to apologize, but it is not taken in the moment and Amy is left feeling even more alone. In a subsequent scene that contrasts directly with this, while waiting in the car to go in to a home to give lap dances to guys at maybe a bachelor party or something similar the other girl asks Jordan if she would like to do a line of coke and then outright asks for women to women encounter. In this scene, the girl sees Jordan just as someone to do coke with and try to seduce, bypassing any concept of friendship. If anybody is seeing her as a pound of flesh, it is this girl. The contrast shows she would be better off hanging out with Amy, and heading back that way. Even her regular patrons at the club for lap dances, seem to have an innate respect for her, certainly not this girl though. Then, as this girl and Jordan leave the car and enter the home of their customers for the lap dances, it briefly appears that this might be a more raucous group, not like the more pleasant regulars at the club, and this might be the driver to bring Jordan to a more welcoming male figure and could this figure be in the person of Noah? While, it is somewhat possible that Amy is also attracted to Jordan, she subdues this in the interest of sincere friendship and indeed may have been right in suggesting she get away from the club and the dancers, based on some of the negative influences of suggesting the use of drugs that we are seeing in this environment. In mathematic terms, Amy is bisecting the relationship with Jordan in ways that are coming more for her need for friendship than anything else. Her affair with the guy at the casino is more generated off the need for some physical affection and to be around a guy that has some degree of pleasantness for her, which she only grudgingly admits, at the same time she seems to be out of the formula of having a reliable husband to go home to. Amy would probably like to just stay with her math formulas where she is super competent, but her human needs take her into more uncertain, not easily quantifiable situations. With the affair she seems to dip in just like someone trying to dip into the pool wondering if the water is too cold. In the meantime, Jordan’s high school brother, David and his friend Hunter are making a mini documentary for school. Hunter also seems to like Jordan, showing how her attraction range seems to go out to various age groups and personality types. These high school kids seem to know what they are doing with making the films and seem competent in what they are doing. As the movie goes on we learn that Noah was on course to be an Olympic diver, when he was stopped by a knee injury, and while still a great athlete, he is still smarting from this wound and how he missed that chance for the gold. Later also, the two high school boys are discussing the possibility of making a commercial revolving around the swim class with Noah, and they say to look into it there would be a fee of 4,000 dollars. Noah says as a matter of fact fashion, that this is okay, and you would expect him to say, “ what are you kidding me", given that these are high school kids and 4,000 is a rather princely sum. . But this for me was a monumental moment towards the central theme of the movie, that people can be taken seriously for their talents, despite being slightly younger, maybe slightly behind the 8 ball in terms of experience, and the way this movie tries to strip away at subtle barriers that always seem to say no. This film represented a nice coming together of the characters, and at times pokes fun of how people put things like age and job descriptions right up front in their interactions with each other. Another running theme is how there is a begrudging mixture of want and need for friendship and even touches of romance on the part of these characters. If and when the characters finally acquiesce it is only begrudgingly. What happens is, the swim class and its members becomes more representative of home, a place that they can go to that is a little more welcoming away from the mass of confusion and the dark of night and a place where they have friends that will pay sincere attention to them. The director at the end said in the writing that he didn’t want the characters to be two dimensional within their conflicts. I think he achieved that.
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