Night Swim – Not Worth The Plunge

Outside of wider release award season leftovers, January has often been a film graveyard where studios dump offerings they are not the most confident about. However, 2022’s M3GAN appeared to be a game-changer and a box office success. Therefore, it’s only logical to release another film to try to replicate that success. Hoping to find some of that same success with Night Swim, that path appears unlikely this time around. The film is a 90+ minute horror trope fest, this time with an aquatic theme that adds absolutely nothing to the experience. Offering very little in the way of excitement or originality, the result is an incredibly-predictable story at every turn which eliminates any possibility of emotional engagement. Though it fails to bring anything new to the table, audiences that are into genre features may find something here. That being said, there are countless other better options out there or at least ones that don’t see those involved both in front of and behind the camera simply going through the motions on their way to accepting their paychecks and moving on to their next projects. Even the slightest amount of effort could have given the film a chance to succeed. Ultimately, if they don’t care, why should audiences?

Based on the acclaimed 2014 short film of the same name by Rod Blackhurst and Bryce McGuire (the writer and director of this adaptation), Night Swim follows Ray Waller (Russell), a former major league baseball player forced into early retirement due to health issues, who decides to set down roots and move into a new home with his wife Eve (Condon), teenage daughter Izzy (Hoeferle) and young son Elliot (Warren). Despite his forced retirement and ailing health, Ray maintained his hope to one day return to the baseball diamond and he saw their new home’s swimming pool as a means to possibility return. As goes with any seemingly perfect situation, they are never as they seem and they always find a way to escalate (or deescalate) as the family slowly discovered that something wasn’t right. In the end, when it comes to films such as this one, the circumstances don’t matter as it could be whittled down to the same basic and predictable plot that has more or less been covered in countless other films but perhaps not to the same extent.

Now it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone that there is something wrong with the Waller’s swimming pool but the origin of that goes far beyond their swimming pool as the water itself is given its own ridiculous backstory to try to tie it all together. In the end, the crux of the story once again sees, this time, the family having to find a way to save themselves before it is too late. The surprises keep on coming as the Wallers were faced with forces underneath the surface with a vested interest in keeping them under their control. Meanwhile, there are presumably stakes to be had, any potential tension or suspense is eliminated by the film’s predictable and overly-derivative nature. Giving audiences literally no reason to care about the story or any of the characters, watching it becomes a chore and its even more ridiculous third act will leave them in a perpetual state of eyeroll as it beats them over the head with tropes.

It may be cynical but sometimes films are considered more as products than ones that truly contribute anything to society. Unfortunately, Night Swim is one of the former and serves no other purpose than taking up a release date before disappearing into obscurity. Everything about this film feels phoned-in as everyone in front of and behind the camera, for the most part, look to merely be going through the motions. The work behind the camera is bland and with everything in front of the camera essentially on autopilot, the terribile material is only accentuated by the lack of effort from the cast in delivering it. Russell and Condon are disinterested while Hoeferle and Warren are there for the ride, for better or worse as the Wallers.

At the end of the day, Night Swim is not worth the plunge, it’s as simple as that.

still courtesy of Universal Pictures

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.