Swimming Upstream (2003)

Director: Russell Mulcahy                             Writer: Anthony Fingleton
Film Score: Reinhold Heil                              Cinematography: Martin McGrath
Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis, Jesse Spencer and Tim Draxl

Swimming Upstream is an amazingly wonderful film from Australia. It’s the autobiographical story of swimmer Tony Fingleton, a nationally ranked swimmer who was heading for the 1964 Olympics but accepted a scholarship to Harvard instead in order to escape the grip of a domineering father and the poverty he had grown up in. It’s a story that we’ve all seen before, the drunken father who abuses his wife and children, at the same time pushing his kids to be what he had never achieved, and stingy with praise when they do succeed. In this case Fingleton had the misfortune of being his father’s least favorite child and pushed all of his other children to compete with and be better than Tony.

The film begins in the mid-fifties with Geoffrey Rush as Harold Fingleton, a father of five, four boys and a girl. He works as a longshoreman on the docks in Brisbane when work is available. When it’s not he drinks. Judy Davis plays his longsuffering wife, Dora. Fingleton is also obsessed with sports, so much so that he forces his children into playing football, boxing, anything to test their toughness. His favorite is initially Harold Jr., primarily because as the oldest he can dominate the rest of the children, especially the second oldest, Tony, who prefers playing piano and reading Shakespeare. To escape the summer heat, and their father’s obsession, they take to the neighborhood pool and spend the day swimming. One day when Fingleton happens to go to the pool he sees Tony actually pulling ahead of his younger brother John’s freestyle while doing the backstroke. He immediately takes off his watch and begins timing the two, convinced that they have the makings of champion swimmers.

What had become a summer respite is now an intensive training ground with Fingleton pushing his kids daily while he is out of work. The sessions are only interrupted when he goes on his binge drinking and creates havoc in the household, physically abusing both his wife and children. The eldest, Harold Jr., with a lack of sports skills decides to follow in his father’s footsteps by drinking. Tony, played by Jesse Spencer, is clearly the better swimmer, but Fingleton doesn’t like him. When John doesn’t make the cut in one of the freestyle competitions, he secretly begins training him in the backstroke and the next year he actually comes in first ahead of Tony. But Tony is far more disciplined because of Fingleton’s dislike of him, and trains all the harder, eventually winning a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games in 1962. But the closer he gets to Olympic success the more his father seems to hate him. Fingleton’s destructive behavior finally gets him tossed out of the house by Dora.

As stated earlier it’s not an original story, unfortunately, but he real power in the film comes from the performances. Geoffrey Rush as Fingleton is, of course, brilliant, an enigmatic man who can’t bear his own failures. Judy Davis, whom we all know is an incredible actress, gives one of the performances of her life as the abused Dora who keeps the family together despite overwhelming poverty and degradation. Jesse Spencer is most famous to American audiences from his years on House, M.D., but he had been a regular on the popular Australian TV series Neighbours. He really makes Tony Fingleton come alive with his refusal to give up, and his successful attempt to maintain a cheerful demeanor in spite of the chaos around him. The sports aspect of the film is not quite as inspiring as the eventual achievement of Tony’s academic dreams. Great performances all the way around make Swimming Upstream a fascinating, if not original, film that’s well worth checking out.