Sink or Swim  ★★★½

WHY does French comedy/drama Sink or Swim work so well?

It’s definitely a little overlong, has a disjointed and uneven script and is ultimately predictable.

But the journey it takes you on is so enjoyable and full of small surprises  that you forgive the film’s failings like the characters in the film forgive each other’s.

French film-makers also seem to know best how to portray older characters and the passage of time that has led them to that point in their lives, particularly those who have become confortable in their strengths and weaknesses and can laugh at the increasingly crazy and unforgiving world around them.

Veteran actor Gilles Lellouche’s Sink or Swim is actually one of two films released in 2018 (the other is Swimming With Men from Britain) that tells the true story of a mens’ amateur synchronised swimming team that eventually competed in the world championships.

Yes, while it’s a true story, we have seen the formula many times before in one form or another, from Cool Runnings to The Full Monty.

Where Sink or Swim differs is mainly in the manner in which it approaches character development.

The film constantly moves between the stories of its main characters, to the extent that 90 minutes in we are still learning surprising details of their back-stories and motivations.

Most of these reveals work effectively, but some are confusing and jarring to a degree that makes you wonder whether they are reflecting the true events or not.

Despite this, a top cast keeps the audience entertained throughout, with moments of hilarity and poignancy, deepened by seeing aspects of your own life amonst them.

Mathieu Almaric plays Bertrand, whose depression has led to lack of desire and motivation, a long period of unemployment and emotional detachment from his wife and teenage children.

While getting changing after swimming at a local indoor pool, he is drawn to the sounds of splashing and male laughter. He discovers a collection of men training together to be a synchronised swimming team and, on impulse, decides to join them.

He is attracted to the comraderie as well as unique nature of the activity and welcomed with open arms by the simple, loquatious Thierry who is the organiser of the grow and works at the pool.

They have set training nights, but members of the group just turn up when they want, train lazily and haphazardly and wind down by swapping stories about their lives over weed in the sauna and beers at the bar.

They are all a little damaged, unique individuals – Thierry is bullied by others at the pool just for being a simple, gentle soul, Bertrand is mocked by relatives for being depressed and playing a ‘girls’ sport. pool salesman Marcus is on the brink of his fourth bankruptcy, Simon is an ex-rocker living out of a camper van and Laurent, well he’s just plain angry at everyone and everything.

Added to the mix is their coach Delphine who appears to have a completely different and unrealistic idea of what the team is about and what it could achieve.

But just when you think a character is displaying typical traits and exists on an understandable level, you learn something more about them that deepends your desire to learn more and sympathise.

This is also when some of the unevenness comes into the script and can take you out of the film momentarily.

But of course we know the big moments are still to come at the world championships and the comedic aspects become stronger.

There is a nice twist that also enables the introduction of another character late in the film and many of the sequences are even funnier as a result.

Lellouche also wisely chooses to hold back on revealing the actual team’s full routine until the climax which makes it all the more effective.

The entire cast are great- it’s wonderful to see my favourite French actor Jean-Hughes Anglade in a comic role as the ex-rocker – with Almaric as Bertrand, Phillipe Katerine as Thierry and Virgine Efira as Delphine still managing to stand out with their performances.

Like its characters, Sink or Swim is flawed but rolls with the punches to provide plenty of funny and touching moments.

Sink or Swim is showing at the Perth International Film Festival from 31 December 2018 to 6 January 2019 at UWA Somerville and 8 to 13 January 2019 at ECU Joondalup Pines.