Written and directed by Sarah Adina Smith
Starring Aleksa Palladino, Jennifer Lafleur, Lindsay Burdge, Beth Grant, Ross Partridge
Unrated
Runtime: 1 hour 24 minutes
Available on VOD January 25

by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer

The Midnight Swim is the first feature film from Sarah Adina Smith, but if we’re going by date of release, it’s her third. The Midnight Swim was filmed in 2014, ran the festival circuit, and is finally seeing a release eight years later. Since then, Smith has made two additional films, Buster’s Mal Heart starring Rami Malek, and Birds of Paradise, a ballet drama for Amazon. While The Midnight Swim shows some promise, particularly with some of the themes, and a few memorable shots, it feels like a first feature, both in terms of budget, cohesion, and the final product.

The Midnight Swim doesn’t know what it wants to be, but doesn’t create anything interesting in trying to figure out why. Is it horror? Mystery? A portrayal on grief? The Midnight Swim is told, rather unfortunately, through the handheld camera of June (Lindsay Burdge), who, along with sisters Annie (Jennifer Lafleur) and Isa (Aleksa Palladino), visit the lakeside home of their mother, who recently passed mysteriously after swimming in the lake. There’s folklore about seven sisters who swam in the lake one summer at midnight, never to reach back to the surface. The film hints at some sort of relation between this folkloric tale and the disappearance of their mother, Amelia. Only in footage from VHS tapes that we find out that Amelia, a conservationist and environmental advocate, is played by none other than prolific character acter Beth Grant. Beth motherf’in Grant. And if you don’t know who Beth Grant is, then let me just say this: I’m starting to doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

The “one character as documentarian” format doesn’t work well here. It means that Burdge remains largely behind the camera, and when we do see her, it’s usually with the camera placed in front of a mirror, staring blankly at her reflection. For someone interested in documenting the process of returning to their childhood home, June does not seem inclined to narrate or in any way justify why she is recording. In the era of TikTok, you’d think she would narrate everything as she goes along. But then again, The Midnight Swim was filmed in 2014 and predates TikTok by a few years.

There are some moments of drama that hint at a film that could have been something more. Eldest daughter Annie, for example, appears to have a much different relationship with their mother than her sisters. As the sisters play dress up in their mother’s clothes, Annie is the only one who takes things a little too far, pretending to bicker (as Amelia) to Annie about how Annie is a brat who won’t help take care of her younger sisters. We also find that Annie experienced a miscarriage, which seems to have affected her relationship with Amelia. But none of this fits. It doesn’t fit with the folklore or any of the mysterious things that start happening, like dead birds outside their house, and time lapse footage on June’s camera of the lake that she wears she didn’t take. Isa finds a mysterious red scarf while fishing, which may have something to do with the seven sisters tale, but it’s unclear how or why. A bizarre sequence during the credits is supposed to bring the story together, but it only makes things murkier.

While the performances are a little inconsistent – Burdge spends a lot of time staring at the camera, and Lafleur picks up the slack by being the most complicated character – Smith accomplishes some memorable shots. In one recurring shot, a dock is shot at twilight, and a figure of a woman in a bathing suit stands at the end. It’s a static shot that makes you a little scared for what might happen near water this late at night, but it’s also a beautifully staged shot of deep blues and blacks, cast against a starry sky. The rest of the film plays with standard indie drama beats: lots of women humming on the soundtrack, a casual fling with a nearby neighbor (Ross Partridge), and even, for some reason, a lip synced music video the sisters put together with clearly rehearsed choreography. The Midnight Swim has a crisis of identity, never fully committing to any genre of any of its grander themes.