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Swimming Home

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Swimming Home

2024

1h 39m

Drama

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

27%

Tomatometer

11 Reviews

Popcornmeter

0 Ratings

Joe and Isabel’s marriage is dying when Kitti, a naked stranger found floating in the pool at their holiday villa, is invited to stay. Kitti collects and eats poisonous plants, and Nina their teenage daughter is enthralled by her. What kind of relief can Kitti provide for this family in crisis? Swimming Home is a surreal and darkly comic journey into the unresolved traumas that lurk in the shadows of all our lives.

Kevin Maher

Times (UK)

Every tedious arthouse cliché is lovingly embraced in a film that begins in unintentional parody mode, with symbolic shots of slow-mo waves, body parts... and discordant music plink-plonking across the soundtrack.

Rated: 1/5

Apr 28, 2025

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Wendy Ide

Screen International

May be better suited to its original form as a novel than to the slightly scattershot approach of this film. Still, there’s a disconcerting, jarring quality to the story that is hard to shake...

Feb 1, 2024

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Peter Bradshaw

Guardian

Lugubrious, laborious and ridiculous – this movie version of Deborah Levy’s celebrated novel Swimming Home is frankly uncomfortable in the most wrong way possible.

Rated: 2/5

Feb 1, 2024

Full Review

Jennie Kermode

Eye for Film

A highly mannered approach, a staccato script and deliberate emotional distance mean that the drama never really comes alive, but the whole thing looks and sounds divine.

Rated: 2.5/5

Apr 29, 2025

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Rich Cline

Shadows on the Wall

Writer-director Justin Anderson takes a quietly observational approach, catching details in ways that feel like furtive glances. This offbeat imagery, including internalised imaginary elements and elements of performance art, is fascinating.

Rated: 3/5

Apr 25, 2025

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Hayley Croke

Loud and Clear Reviews

By the second act, the artistic vision of Justin Anderson completely envelopes the film, leaving the actors stranded in time as the audience waits for the film to settle back into itself. Spoiler alert: it never does.

Rated: 2/5

Dec 9, 2024

Full Review

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Justin Anderson

Director

Christopher Abbott

Actor

Mackenzie Davis

Actor

Ariane Labed

Actor

Nadine Labaki

Actor

Freya Hannan-Mills

Actor

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Synopsis

Joe and Isabel’s marriage is dying when Kitti, a naked stranger found floating in the pool at their holiday villa, is invited to stay. Kitti collects and eats poisonous plants, and Nina their teenage daughter is enthralled by her. What kind of relief can Kitti provide for this family in crisis? Swimming Home is a surreal and darkly comic journey into the unresolved traumas that lurk in the shadows of all our lives.

Director: Justin Anderson
Producer: Andrew Starke, Giorgos Karnavas, Emily Morgan, Marcos Tellechea, Paula Linhares
Screenwriter: Justin Anderson
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Runtime: 1h 39m