Film Review: Swimfan (2002)

If a Hollywood film begins with major character having a good life, it is very likely that life won’t be so good during the course of the plot. That includes even teenagers, like the protagonist of Swimfan, 2002 thriller directed by John Polson. For Ben Cronin (played by Jesse Bradford) future seems very bright. Thanks to his athletic talent he is star of high school swimming team and very likely to get prestigious Stanford University scholarship. He is also one of the most popular students with beautiful Amy Miller (played by Shiri Appleby) as his girlfriend, so loyal that she contemplates taking college in California only to be as close to him as possible. But things begin to go wrong for Ben after accidental encounter with girl named Madison Bell (played by Erika Christensen). During Amy’s temporary absences those encounters continue during which Madison tries, and ultimately succeeds in seducing Ben. After they had sex, Ben becomes regretful and, feeling guilt over cheating Amy, wants to end the relationship. Madison will have none of it and instead begins to obsessively stalking him, with each rejection leading to more and more extreme actions that would involve planting drugs and even killing.

Swimfan was obviously inspired by Fatal Attraction, with its basic premise being refreshed with setting in high school milieu and teenagers as major characters. The inevitable comparison between two films will, rather predictably, be in favour of previous film. The reason in script for Swimfan being uninspired, characters being one-dimensional and, most importantly, cast being very bad, especially former child actor Jesse Bradford who plays utterly bland protagonist, despite script trying to add some depth with Ben having somewhat of a troubled past. Shiri Appleby, who plays his even blander girlfriend, is utterly forgettable. On the other hand, Erika Christensen is much more convincing as the villain. With her somewhat unconventional and somewhat plain looks, she gives a little bit of realism to otherwise annoyingly Hollywood-like thriller. The other issue that works against this film is its market orientation towards teenagers, which burdened it with PG-13 rating and thus limited depiction violence and sex. But even under such limitations, a little more creativity could have turned Swimfan into an acceptable trashy fun. Sadly, it didn’t happen and Swimfan quickly sank into oblivion. Today it could be recommended only to those viewers who are slightly nostalgic towards early 21st Century Hollywood.

RATING: 3/10 (+)

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