Ethan Rouse Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Young Woman and the Sea,’ starring Daisy Ridley, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Stephen Graham, Kim Bodnia, Christopher Eccleston and Glenn Fleshler

May 31, 2024

by Carla Hay

Daisy Ridley in “Young Woman and the Sea” (Photo courtesy of Disney Enterprises, Inc.)

Directed by Joachim Rønning

Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States and Europe from 1914 to 1926, the dramatic film “Young Woman and the Sea” (based on true events) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with one black person) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Champion swimmer Trudy Ederle, who becomes the first woman to swim across the English Channel, defies expectations and sexism in her quest for greatness.

Culture Audience: “Young Woman and the Sea” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of “against all odds” stories about underestimated athletes or women in patriarchal societies.

Ethan Rouse, Kim Bodnia, Jeanette Hain, Daisy Ridley and Tilda Cobham-Hervey in “Young Woman and the Sea” (Photo by Elena Nenkova/Disney Enterprises, Inc.)

“Young Woman and the Sea” is a traditionally made sports drama that might seem old-fashioned to some viewers. However, this biopic about champion swimmer Trudy Ederle has solid acting and themes that don’t get outdated, such as triumphing over obstacles. People who like stories about iconic achievers who are determined but modest about their accomplishments will find plenty to like about how Ederle is portrayed in this inspirational film.

Directed by Joachim Rønning, “Young Woman and the Sea” is based on Glenn Stout’s 2009 non-fiction book “Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel.” The movie’s adapted screenplay was written by Jeff Nathanson. Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle (who was born in 1905 and died in 2003) is considered one of the best competitive female swimmers of all time, not just because of the records she broke but also because of the barriers she broke for other female swimmers. There’s nothing complicated about this movie, which is told in mostly chronological order. For the purposes of this review, the real Trudy Ederle will be called Ederle, while the Trudy Ederle character in the movie will be called Trudy.

“Young Woman and the Sea” begins in the mid-1920s, by showing Trudy in her early 20s (played by Daisy Ridley) about to dive into a large body of water to train for her historic swim across the English Channel. She is covered in an unnamed lubricant (it looks like Vaseline), which is what long-distance swimmers use to help deal with cold-water temperatures. Trudy is singing what the movie later reveals to be her favorite song: the 1920 foxtrot tune “Ain’t We Got Fun,” written by Richard A. Whiting, Raymond B. Egan and Gus Kahn.

The movie then shows an extensive flashback to Trudy’s childhood in 1914, when she was 9 years old. Trudy (played Olive Abercrombie) has made a near-miraculous recovery from measles that left her bedridden and her family worried that she might die. However, the measles would lead to Trudy having hearing loss that got worse when she was in her 30s and eventually became legally deaf.

Trudy lives in New York City with her German immigrant parents; her older sister Margaret “Meg” Ederle; and her younger brother Henry Ederle Jr. (“Young Woman and the Sea” was actually filmed in Bulgaria.) Meg is about two or three years older than Trudy. Henry is about five or six years younger than Trudy. Tilda Cobham-Hervey has the role of young-adult Meg. Lilly Aspell has the role of adolescent Meg. Raphael J. Bishop has the role of pre-teen Henry. Ethan Rouse has the role of teenage Henry.

Henry Ederle Sr. (played by Kim Bodnia) is a butcher who believes in a strict, patriarchal way of living, where men are supposed to be thought of and treated as superior to women. Gertrude Ederle (played by Jeanette Hain) is strong-willed and thinks that women and girls should not have restrictions placed on them because of gender. In other words, Gertrude is a feminist before the word “feminist” was invented.

Getrude’s belief in gender equality plays a crucial role in giving Trudy the motivation and opportunities to become a champion swimmer. Early on in the movie, when Ederle kids are all underage, Meg and Trudy can see from their home that ship has gone up in flames at a nearby port. Gertrude tells them the tragic news that many people (mostly women) on the ship drowned because they didn’t know how to swim, and they stayed on the burning boat rather than risk trying to swim to shore nearby.

Henry Sr. says that Henry Jr. will definitely learn how to swim, but Meg doesn’t need to learn. Gertrude strongly disagrees and says that Meg and Trudy have a right to learn how to swim, just like anyone else does. Gertrude believes that knowing how to swim is a life-saving skill that shouldn’t be deprived or bestowed upon people based on gender. Henry Sr. also believes that it isn’t ladylike for girls or women to be in swimming competitions.

In the meantime, Trudy is determined to learn how to swim, even though her father disapproves. Trudy’s doctor has also warned that Trudy shouldn’t get too much water in her ears, or it could cause more hearing loss for Trudy. After much persistence from Trudy, her father agrees to teach Trudy how to swim at Coney Island’s beach. Due to her recent illness, Trudy cannot use a public swimming pool.

Trudy is a natural talent and soon becomes obsessed with swimming. When Trudy and Meg are teenagers, Henry Sr. is still adamant that they can’t become competitive swimmers. So what does Getrude do? She enrolls Trudy and Meg in an all-female swimming team, led by a tough-but-caring coach named Charlotte “Eppy” Epstein (played by Sian Clifford), who gives the two sisters the training to become more disciplined swimmers.

It isn’t long before Trudy outshines Meg as a swimmer in competitons. Meg seems to have some envy about Trudy’s superior swimming skills, but Meg’s envy doesn’t fester into full-blown jealousy, mainly because Meg is not as passionate about swimming as Trudy is. Trudy puts swimming above everything else in her life. In the movie, Trudy is never shown having any friends or dating anyone. Meg is Trudy’s closest confidante.

Meg starts to rebel a little against her father. One night, Meg comes home late and smelling like liquor. Meg admits to her disapproving father that she’s been on a date with a guy named Chip Anderson (played by Hyoie O’Grady), who has been courting Meg and will soon ask Meg to marry him. Henry Sr. flies into a rage because he thinks his daughters should marry men of German heritage. (The movie takes a short detour into Meg’s love life, which doesn’t go according to what Meg really wants.)

Meanwhile, a montage shows that Trudy wins several swimming competitions on a local, state, and then national level, often breaking swimming records along the way. It’s inevitable that Trudy trains for the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. And then, in 1926, Trudy decides to take on her biggest challenge of all: swimming across the English Channel, which is a feat that had never been accomplished by a woman at the time.

“Young Woman and the Sea” has the expected scenes of men trying to block or discourage Trudy’s ambitions, simply because of her female gender. Trudy’s father is one of the chief culprits of this sexism. And for a long time, he refuses to celebrate Trudy’s accomplishments. Trudy’s mother Gertrude is always supportive of her, but Trudy wants her father’s approval too.

For her Olympic training, Trudy gets a wealthy sponsor named James Sullivan (played by Glenn Fleshler), a pompous blowhard who wants Trudy to be among the six American female swimmers whom he’s sponsoring for the Olympics. James insists that Trudy and the other women swimmers have a male coach. Jabez Wolffe (played by Christopher Eccleston), a Scottish has-been professional swimmer, becomes Trudy’s coach. It becomes obvious early on that Jabez is very jealous that Trudy is more talented than he could ever be.

Not all of the men in Trudy’s life are sexist and condescending. Trudy meets a rebellious sailor named Bill Burgess (played by Stephen Graham), who’s got a similar spirit of non-conformity as Trudy has. The first time that Trudy sees Bill, he’s at the Coney Island beach being arrested for swimming naked. Bill ends up becoming Trudy’s sailor navigator during her English Channel swimming marathon. Trudy also develops a friendly acquaintance with another swimmer named Benji Zammit (played by Alexander Karim), who also wants to swim across the English Channel.

Even if viewers have never heard of Trudy Ederle before seeing this movie, “Young Woman Sea” has no real surprises because it checks all the usual plot boxes and follows the same formula as many other sports movies. A noticeable flaw of the movie is that it doesn’t accurately depict the type of hearing loss that the real Ederle had during this time in her life. There’s a brief mention of her hearing loss but then Trudy’s hearing loss is never really mentioned or shown again.

The acting performances fit the tone of the movie very well. Ridley is quite good but not outstanding in “Young Woman and the Sea,” which unrealistically makes Trudy look like she has no personality flaws. The swimming scenes are thrilling though, with Oscar Faura’s cinematography making viewers feel immersed in the water along with Trudy, even in some of the scenes that are obviously not in a real ocean. Unlike the treacherous waters that Trudy swims in, “Young Woman and the Sea” offers nothing edgy or unpredictable. The movie is a perfectly fine option for anyone who wants to see a story that can appeal to many generations of people.

Walt Disney Pictures released “Young Woman and the Sea” in select U.S. cinemas on May 31, 2024.

Review: ‘Monster Family 2,’ starring the voices of Emily Watson, Nick Frost, Jessica Brown Findlay, Ethan Rouse, Emily Carey, Catherine Tate and Jason Isaacs

October 23, 2021

by Carla Hay

Emma Wishbone (voiced by Emily Watson), Frank Wishbone (voiced by Nick Frost), Max Wishbone (voiced by Ethan Rouse) and Fay Wishbone (voiced by Jessica Brown Findlay) in “Monster Family 2” (Image courtesy of VivaKids)

“Monster Family 2”

Directed by Holger Tappe

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, Scotland, the Himalayas and outer space, the animated film “Monster Family 2” features an all-white cast of characters representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A British family that can transform into monsters is targeted by an American family in a spaceship that wants to capture all monsters that they think are menaces to society.

Culture Audience: “Monster Family 2” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the first “Monster Family” movie and people who don’t mind seeing a substandard animated film with a silly story and messy production values.

Maddox Starr (voiced by Daniel Ben Zenou), Mila Starr (voiced by Emily Carey) and Marlene Starr in “Monster Family 2” (Image courtesy of VivaKids)

“Monster Family 2” is one of those sequels that shouldn’t have been made because hardly anyone was asking for it and it’s worse than its predecessor. The 2017 animated film “Monster Family” was a huge flop with audiences and critics. It’s mind-boggling that anyone thought it was a good idea to do a sequel to a movie that clearly was such an unequivocal dud in every sense of the word. But here is “Monster Family 2,” a time-wasting, incoherent and dull movie that fails at any attempt to be funny or interesting.

Holger Tapper, who directed “Monster Family,” is also the director of “Monster Family 2.” The first “Monster Family,” as atrocious as it was, still had a story that was simple enough for people of many ages to follow: Count Dracula (voiced by Jason Isaacs) became infatuated with a married woman named Emma Wishbone who, along with her husband and two adolescent children, got cursed and the Wishbone family all turned into monsters. A lot of shenanigans ensued until the curse was predictably lifted. And (spoiler alert) at the end of the movie, Count Dracula was frozen into an icicle-like cage with his own snowflake weapon.

In “Monster Family 2,” Count Dracula is able to free himself from his icicle prison, but he isn’t in this sequel as much as he was in “Monster Family.” Instead, the family ends up spending part of the movie in outer space because of a convoluted story involving a spaceship-residing human family that wants to capture the world’s worst monsters. David Safier, who co-wrote the first “Monster Family” movie with Catharina Junk, is the sole screenwriter for “Monster Family 2.” Because he’s the only screenwriter this time around, it’s now easy to see who’s mainly responsible for coming up with all the bad story ideas for this movie franchise, which is based on Safier’s children’s book “Happy Family.”

Through a series of circumstances, the Wishbones are turned into monsters again: Emma Wishbone (voiced by Emily Watson) is turned into a vampire. Emma’s husband Frank Wishbone (voiced by Nick Frost) becomes Frankenstein. Emma and Frank’s daughter Fay Wishbone (voiced by Jessica Brown Findlay), who’s about 16 or 17, is transformed into a mummy. Emma and Frank’s son Max Wishbone (voiced by Ethan Rouse), who’s about 12 or 13, is changed into a werewolf. The Wishbone family is British and live in a middle-class home in New York City.

In the beginning of the movie, the Wishbones are at the wedding of Baba Yaga (voiced by Catherine Tate), the elderly witch who put a spell on them in the first “Monster Family” movie. Baba Yaga is friendly with the Wishbones now. Her groom is an elderly man named Renfield. The Wishbones are the only guests at the wedding, which takes place in a church. Count Dracula’s three annoying (and thankfully mute) bats are still hovering around being the pests that they were in “Monster Family.”

The Wishbones think that they have gone back to their regular lives as human beings. The only “turmoil” in the family in the beginning of the story is that Fay—who is constantly on her phone to take selfies and to use her social media—is expressing some teenage rebellion because she’s secretly thinking about dropping out of school. Max, who is an insecure brat, knows this secret and threatens to tell the parents. Emma is generally more level-headed than her husband Frank, who is sort of a bumbling goofball when he gets overly excited.

Unbeknownst to this small wedding party, they are all being spied on by an American family of three people in a spaceship, which is called the Starr Copter. These spies are the Starr Family, whose motto is “I can make the world a better place.” The family consists of a billionaire philanthropist couple named Maddox Starr (voiced by Daniel Ben Zenou) and Marlene Starr and their teenage daughter Mila Starr (voiced by Emily Carey), who is sent to do all the dirty work for her parents.

Actually, the Starrs think that what they’re doing is the opposite of dirty work. These do-gooders are fanatical about finding and capturing the worst monsters in the world. They want to keep these monsters imprisoned in pods on their spacecraft. Mila ends up capturing Dracula. Her parents praise her and tell her to capture Baba Yaga next.

And that’s how Mila ends up literally crashing the wedding, where she states her intentions. She has drones that can lift people in the air. The Wishbone family tries in vain to stop Mila from abducting Baba Yaga and Renfield, but Mila whisks the bride and groom away and holds them captive on the Starr Copter.

During this weirdly slow-paced battle, Mila gets into an argument with Max and insults him by calling him “Pizza Boy.” Mila gives him this nickname because she says that the only thing it looks like he knows how to do in life is order pizza. It’s a mean-spirited dig at Max’s body size because he’s a little chubby.

“Monster Family 2” has some strange comedy that falls very flat, not including the body-shaming jokes that are downright moronic. During her argument with Max, Mila kisses him on the lips, which suggests that she’s actually attracted to him. After Mila kisses Max, they both say in disgust, “Eww!” This kissing scene just looks out-of-place in this movie.

Max is also dressed like a 1980s pimp when he goes to the wedding: He’s wearing gold chains, a brown fur-lined jacket, baggy pants and sneakers. Max’s father Frank compliments Max and tells him he looks great. It’s an odd remark, considering the outfit looks more like a Halloween costume than something an adolescent boy should be wearing at a wedding.

Even more bizarre: There’s an Oedipal moment when Max emerges in this inappopriate attire, he swaggers like he thinks he’s a pimp, and he looks at his mother and touches her face in a way that suggests that he thinks even his own mother could fall for his seductive charms. This is all being depicted for a boy who isn’t even old enough to have a driver’s license. And this hint of incestful thoughts from this boy is just too creepy for a family-oriented movie—or any movie for that matter.

Out on the street before they go into the church, Max happens to see a girl he has a crush on. But right at that moment, his baggy pants fall down. The girl and the friend who’s with her take photos on their phone. Max is naturally embarrassed. It’s a scene that’s awkwardly presented in the movie. And let’s just not discuss the cheesy dancing to MC Hammer’s 1990 hit “U Can’t Touch This” that comes later in the movie.

In the quest to rescue Baba Yaga and Renfield, the Wishbones are turned into monsters again when Max uses a magical amulet that he got from Baba Yaga. Mila’s parents tell her that the Loch Ness Monster and the Yeti (also known as the Abominable Snowman) are next on her list of monsters to capture. What follows is a lot of ridiculousness involving the Wishbone family (in monster form) going to Scotland and the Himalayas.

The action scenes in “Monster Family 2” are poorly staged, with characters in the film moving too slow and/or standing around talking in what are supposed to be high-energy chase sequences. The dialogue is simply awful. The story is extremely tedious. The characters are unappealing, while the voice performances are mediocre. And there’s a truly cringe-inducing moment toward the end where some of the characters sing the Human League’s 1986 hit “Human,” in a scene that’s supposed to be sentimental for all the reasons you think, if you know the lyrics to the song.

The only notable thing that “Monster Family 2” has going for it is that the animation is very colorful. Worst of all, for a movie about a “monster family,” there is hardly anything spooky (even in a comedic way) about this film. Any movie that under-uses an iconic villain such as Count Dracula is a movie that’s not worth seeing.

VivaKids released “Monster Family 2” in select U.S. cinemas on October 15, 2021. Sky Group premiered the movie in the United Kingdom on October 22, 2021.