The Media Tourist

Daisy Ridley swims into sports history in high-spirited period-piece biopic

Young Woman and the Sea
Starring Daisy Ridley
Directed by Joachim RØnning
Rated PG

In theaters Friday, May 31

You probably don’t know (or don’t know much) about the first woman to swim the English Channel. So let this high-spirited, warm-hearted biopic introduce you to Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle, who in 1926 made a big splash by doing something that only five other people—all men—had done, completing what was thought to be “the hardest test in all of sports.”

And beating the boys at their own game.

Daisy Ridley, the British actress best known for playing the Jedi Rey in four Star Wars flicks, is Trudy, the headstrong youngest daughter of a family of German working-class immigrants in New York City. After nearly dying from measles as a child—and hearing of an onboard ship tragedy in which hundreds of women died because they didn’t know how to swim—she’s determined to conquer the water. But in 1920s America, swimming was primarily for boys and men due to societal prohibitions about women showing too much skin.

Based on a 2009 book of the same name, Young Woman and the Sea follows mostly standard biopic beats showing how Trudy grows up to defy her grumpy father (Kim Bodina), bond with her older sister (Tilda Cobham-Harvey) and align with her supportive, strong-willed mother (Jeanette Hain). The movie also offers some playful situational humor, as when Trudy annoys her father into agreeing to let her join a swim class, or later, when her measles-related hearing loss comes in handy by muffling a dissonant drone of bagpipes.  

Eventually Trudy starts winning competitions and getting medals, and she’s invited to represent the United States in the 1924 Paris Olympics. But as female swimmers make modest strides into the mainstream, Trudy sets her eyes on something bigger—breaking into, and breaking through, the boys-club claim on the most dangerous swim in the world, one that no woman had ever undertaken.

It’s hard not to be inspired by this true-story tale as she overcomes the norms of the times and prepares to swim across the treacherous, 21-mile stretch of waterway between England and France. She’s warned of the icy, 20-degree water, schools of jellyfish, occasional sharks and even some unexploded mines left over from World War I. She’s saddled with a coach (Christopher Eccleston) who gets seasick—and spitefully jealous of what she’s trying to do. She also gets help and tips from a colorfully boisterous Brit, Bill Burgess (Stephan Graham), one of the handful of men who traversed the Channel before her. And speaking of showing skin, Burgess likes to wear skimpy bathing trunks and sometimes swim in the buff. Cover your eyes, girls!

Norwegian director Joachim RØnning has a keen eye for the many in-the-water sequences, and an attention to period detail that enhances the mood and feel of the times, from huffing steamships, clacking telegraphs and flapping carrier pigeons to families glued to their radios to get the news. We get a glimpse of Tarzan-to-be Johnny Weissmuller, who was himself an Olympic-champion swimmer before Hollywood called. The popular ‘20s foxtrot tune “Ain’t We Got Fun” becomes Trudy’s musical mantra.

It’s a Disney movie, yes, but instead of cartoon animals and evil stepmothers, it’s a rousing tale of real-life feminism in the water and a young woman who was dubbed by the press as the “Queen of the Waves.” When she comes home victorious—and beating the men’s best Channel-crossing time by nearly two hours—New York City throws her the biggest ticker-tape parade ever, with even the New York Yankees (and Babe Ruth!) cheering from the packed sidelines.

The title might make you think of a fem-centric, youthful spin on another sea tale, Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” Or perhaps Nyad, the recent Netflix film about Diana Nyad, in her mid-sixties when she swam from Cuba to Florida. Young Woman in the Water is an engaging look at the OG of female swimmers, a girl barely into her twenties when she made waves that rocked the world, who saw something she wanted, jumped in and went for it, stroking and kicking her way into sports history.

And yes, even swimming through a school of jellyfish. Ow!

—Neil Pond