The Swimmers

Sally El Hosaini’s The Swimmers is an affecting refugee drama weakened by its reliance on familiar sporting uplift. It gives its central sisters enough warmth and individuality to make their ordeal matter, then too often tells us how encouraging we should find it. We would recommend it to those interested in their story, with reservations about the way it is told. The strongest passages concern the practical business of surviving a journey neither sister should have to make.

Nathalie Issa plays Yusra Mardini and Manal Issa plays Sarah Mardini, and their convincing closeness does much of the work. They make the relationship feel established before the screenplay has finished explaining its importance. The affection between them is persuasive enough that we can care about them without another reminder of what their experience represents. When the writing grows earnest, the performances remain approachable; these are people we want to spend time with, even outside the ordeal.

Christopher Ross’s cinematography is particularly effective when the sisters dance on a rooftop with violence around them. The pleasure of dancing is allowed to register, which makes the surrounding danger harder to dismiss as background. Sally El Hosaini understands how much this ordinary enjoyment matters to our sense of who the sisters are. The scene gives them a life beyond the suffering the story requires us to witness.

The sea crossing is the film’s most forceful stretch. We were frightened by the boat sequence, because its confusion makes safety feel difficult even to imagine. Iain Kitching’s editing keeps the uncertainty immediate, and Christopher Ross’s images bring us close enough to share it. There is suspense here without the reassuring distance of an adventure, and we never lose our concern for the sisters amid the confusion. This is where the film’s concern for its characters feels most fully earned.

Along the coast, discarded life jackets and shoes make another strong impression. Patrick Rolfe’s production design is effective in such material details, which suggest individual lives without requiring another explanatory speech. The objects are enough to hold our attention. The film would benefit from trusting this sort of image more often, rather than repeatedly pressing its larger message about courage and perseverance.

Jack Thorne’s screenplay is less convincing when the sports-drama conventions become more prominent, and the pacing slackens across 134 minutes. Hope is welcome, but the encouragement becomes predictable. Steven Price’s music belongs to a soundtrack that works too hard to ensure the appropriate response, with the pop songs particularly insistent. Those choices leave less space for what the actors have already conveyed. The emphasis on uplift gradually makes the film feel less personal.

As a survival drama, The Swimmers can make us anxious about the simplest prospect of reaching safety. As a sports drama, it settles for conventions that do less justice to these particular women. That unevenness matters, though it does not erase the performances or the fear of the crossing. See it for the sisters, and be prepared for the film to insist on feelings they have already earned.