Sink or Swim

Sink or Swim (2018) was one of the biggest French releases of its year and premiered out of competition at Cannes. The premise sounds like a joke: a synchronised swimming team made up of middle aged men. Bertrand has been depressed for two years. He cannot work, he sits at home. He sees a notice at the pool and forces himself into the team. The others are in similar shape: a bankrupt businessman, a musician nobody ever heard of, a man who cannot manage his own anger. Their coach uses a wheelchair and is fighting her own bitterness. Gilles Lellouche sells it as a comedy, but what it is actually about is men falling apart and having nobody to tell. The funny parts are genuinely funny, and yet the film never makes the men ridiculous. That distinction is the whole thing. The cast is a roll call of French cinema: Mathieu Amalric, Guillaume Canet, Benoît Poelvoorde, Virginie Efira. It runs 122 minutes and the middle section is too long. Good for: feel good films that are not saccharine, and stories about depression and middle age. Less good for: you will see the ending coming and the film makes no attempt to hide it.