Burt Lancaster stars as an aged vision of success in a sun-soaked tale of all-American failure, The Swimmer (1968).
As the blazing heat of summer continues, finding a film that feels as sun-soaked as the season is almost necessary for surviving it. The tanned bodies, dappled light and aquamarine pools of The Swimmer are precisely what this weather calls for, refreshing both in its thirst-quenching imagery and its thrilling twists.
Made nearly 60 years ago, Frank and Eleanor Perry’s and Sydney Pollack’s adaptation of John Cheever’s story still stands the test of time as a singular, stunning film. It is unmistakably a product of American cinema in transition, shaped by the fading glamour of the Old Hollywood studio system and the introspective sensibilities of New Hollywood, making it feel both modern and classic all at once.
The picture follows the charming Ned Merrill (Burt Lancaster) as he attempts to swim across the Connecticut Valley via each of his neighbour’s pools on a summer day. A resident of this affluent community, Ned is adamant that he can get home to his family this way, assuming his friends and neighbours will be pleased to see him as he crashes cocktail socials and tanning sessions. But with every encounter, a new aspect of Ned’s reality is exposed, uncovering the failures and misfortunes that don’t quite match his proud and lively demeanour.
At the very beginning, tense orchestrals mismatch with the glorious sight of Burt Lancaster’s tanned back cutting through the turquoise waters. This contradiction is a preview of what is to come as the film blends unease with beauty.
Set in opulent pools and large, sun-drenched gardens, The Swimmer satiates in the summer heat, honing in on visuals of shimmering pools and swimsuit-clad figures. Upper-class suburbia is both glamourised and torn apart, pictured beautifully while exposing the fragile performance of politeness and civility beneath the surface. The film dives into the fragility of carefully maintained appearances, placing Ned in difficult situations and prying conversations that he tries hard to avoid for fear of his uncomfortable truth slipping out. With each rewatch, the suspicious glances and concealed concerns of Ned’s neighbours become clearer, speaking to the gulf between Ned’s perception of himself and the reality everyone else can see.
There is also a haze over the film which feels high on nostalgia, dream-like with distortion and a sense of surrealism. Released just before the start of the 1970s, these moments offer a glimpse of the experimental style that would come to characterise the following decade in cinema. At times, the film breaks into strange, almost psychedelic sequences, partly corny, partly indicative of Ned’s delusional state.
The Swimmer’s main narrative device is a genius way to stage a psychological drama. The quest serves as a way for Ned to assert his masculinity and prove his neighbours wrong by taking on this odd and unlikely challenge. Each pool he swims in, each party he crashes, peels back layers of Ned’s prideful facade with concerned looks, pointed questions and polite nervousness. The film’s setting goes from morning to afternoon, and from sun to rain as Ned’s troubles crash down around him and the truth is revealed. Like Ned’s youth and his fortune, the warmth and joy are over.
At 55, Burt Lancaster convinces as the older lady’s man, ego inflated by years without rejection, still blessed by good looks and a masculine charm. As his delusions of grandeur wear down across the 95-minute duration, Lancaster plays the facade well, balancing pride with faltering confidence. He is an actor who has always played physicality and emotion in tension, and does so here with tenderness, rawness and bravado all at once.
At its core, the film serves to dismantle an archetype. Between Lancaster’s brilliant acting, Cheever’s reflective story and the Perrys’ psychologically charged lens, the all-American, suburban hero is turned into a tragic figure, revealing the fragility of status and masculinity in this high society. With its final revelation, it becomes an existential meditation on the inevitable end of youth, asking what remains when the identities we’ve built begin to crumble.
Capturing the warm, bright haze of summer with a bitter turn, The Swimmer is a rare watch that begins with sensory pleasure and ends with existential collapse, leaving you both refreshed and unsettled in its wake.
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