Although many people recommended that I watch Disney’s “The Girl and the Sea” with my two daughters, it took me a while to get around to it.
To be honest, it was because it sounded a little boring.
I confused The Girl and the Sea with The Lady of the Lake – the woman who, according to legend, gave King Arthur the sword Excalibur. I’ve never been particularly interested in medieval tales, with the exception of The Witch in the Stone. But my love for this film is mainly focused on the part where Merlin and Arthur turn into squirrels, and as far as I know, that section is not canon to the actual story of King Arthur.
So a film about the Lady of the Lake was probably not for me.
But then someone close to me explained that Young Woman and the Sea was actually about the first woman to swim the English Channel in the 1920s, and I became much more interested in it because I love a good sports biography – especially when it’s about a woman overcoming impossible obstacles, and especially when it’s a period film. The question was, would my children be as excited about the idea as I was?
Young Woman and the Sea grossed very little during its theatrical run earlier this summer, but it earned an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes and a “generally favorable” rating of 62 on Metacritic. The film was originally set to be released directly to streaming on Disney+, but after good reviews, it was given a limited release. Now it’s where it was always meant to be – on living room screens, where parents and kids can watch it together.
And that’s exactly what we did.
I rounded up my daughters (ages 12 and 9) and bribed them with a movie night if they all got their homework done on time. They did, because bribery is a pretty effective parenting tool and we had plenty of time to watch Young Woman and the Sea before bed. I was worried, though, that they might get bored at some point during the two-hour, nine-minute runtime. The film is, after all, a historical biopic, which isn’t exactly a genre that screams “perfect for tweens.”
But this film Is perfect for teenagers. And 9-year-olds. And even my 5-year-old son, who was supposed to be in bed, watched a good portion of it with us. Yes, he was just delaying bedtime and spent a lot of time asking if Daisy Ridley was the same woman from Jaws, a film I showed him a few minutes of during a serious lapse in judgment and which was made 20 years before Daisy Ridley was born, but still. He was riveted.
Ridley plays Gertrude Ederle – or Trudy, as she is called throughout the film – the daughter of German immigrants living in New York. After nearly contracting measles as a child, she learns to swim and becomes one of the best swimmers in the world. After a disappointing Olympics in Paris, she decides to swim the English Channel, a feat that few men have ever accomplished.
The film also stars Tilda Cobham-Hervey as Trudy’s sister Meg, Sian Clifford as Trudy’s trainer Charlotte Epstein, and Stephen Graham as Bill Burgess, the second man to swim the Channel. Burgess’s alleged penchant for swimming naked and a shot of Graham’s bare bottom contribute to the film’s PG rating.
This film has its flaws. Some of the British actors’ attempts at imitating a New York accent are a little wacky. The dialogue was sometimes very expository and sometimes a little eye-rolling. But Ridley delivers a world-class performance, the cinematography is beautiful, and the story is engaging and inspiring. I even cried a few times. To be honest, I’ve been crying a lot lately, but I was really moved by Trudy Ederle’s perseverance and the world that rallied around her and wanted her to succeed. And more importantly, my kids loved the film.
Young Woman and the Sea feels like the kind of movie I used to watch with my mom on the living room couch. Movies like Little Women and Anne of Green Gables. Movies that I don’t think we get enough of anymore, maybe because they’re not as successful as the flashier intellectual property films that studios are focusing on today. But I hope Young Woman and the Sea does well on streaming, because I’d love to have more inspiring, female-centric movies to watch with my daughters. And more movies that I can bribe them with to get their homework done on time.
“Young Woman and the Sea” is available on Disney+ and is rated PG. You can watch the trailer Here.