J Paul Johnson
An ineffably well-acted and directed coming-of-age film with a smart young female protagonist at the center of its narrative, Sasha Nathwani’s Last Swim is an absolute delight. It’s intelligent, earnest, and empathetic, and it’s shot with lively, expressive cinematography that matches the film’s juxtaposition of joyous youth and sober reality perfectly. Set in and around London on the last day of school before summer, Last Swim practically bursts with the energy of adolescence.
Ziba (Deba Hakmat), an exceptionally bright and ambitious Iranian-American teen, is facing a tenuous future. Her high marks have earned her a spot at University College London’s program in astrophysics. Her studies are more than mere academic achievement: she’s an exceptional student, driven by a passion for her subject that Last Swim effortlessly characterizes through her occasional voice-over narration. On the day she and her friends are celebrating their exam results, Ziba is looking forward to a meteor shower, a “celestial event” she’s been planning to watch with her school friends.
Looming over Ziba and her mother, though, is a medical diagnosis: a life-threatening (unnamed, but assumedly cancer) illness that will require invasive chemotherapy. It may prevent her from attending university, and it may well take her life. The diagnosis of a potentially fatal disease is the stuff of classic melodrama, but it never feels anything less than realistic in Last Swim: Nathwani and co-writer Helen Simmons’ script allows Ziba to enjoy her special day in the company of friends while keeping her diagnosis a realistic and immediate concern.
Known even among her friends as a notorious organizer, Ziba has mapped out—and even printed, on paper—schedules for her and her friends’ day out. The “celestial event” is the day’s penultimate. On each of her friends’ printouts, the last event, scheduled for 11:59 pm, is left blank. On Ziba’s itinerary, it’s marked as her “last swim.” She’s made the choice to end her life, rather than face the bleak future of her medical condition, with a final watery plunge into the Thames.
Her friends no nothing of her medical condition nor of her suicidal ideation. Ziba’s determination to control the day’s events—she seems at least a little on the spectrum, flummoxed by the unforeseen and often awkward in her interactions with others—is set into sharp relief against the others’ sheer joy at surviving their A-levels. The five of them joyride, scarf falafel, swim and sunbathe, toke weed, make out, and more—all the love and laughter of adolescence gets packed into Last Swim‘s joyous expression of adolescence.
Hakmat is wonderful as the conflicted Ziba: her expressive eyes mirror the angst her character must feel but wants so badly to forget, and her character is richly drawn. Her Ziba is highly intelligent nut socially a bit awkward, desperate to control events even well beyond her ability to do so, and challenged to process others’ needs and emotions. All of the cast members are excellent: Lydia Fleming in particular shines as Ziba’s bestie Tara, even if the actor is at 29 more than a decade older than the character she plays (each of them looks to me at least a few years beyond university).
As excellent in every respect as Last Swim is, its third-act climax feels like a cheat. Without divulging spoilers, I’ll just say that Simmons and Nathwani’s script creates a narrative predicament that feels unresolvable. Is Ziba going to go through with her planned suicide? What a godawful movie and message that would be! If not, what will change her mind? At best, that something would be organic to the plot, developed with nuance and subtlety, and feel, at that moment, earned and motivated. Last Swim‘s last-ditch deus ex machina does not. Instead, it lands with all the grace of the 16-ton weights that used to drop to end Monty Python skits.
Others might be more willing to lend the filmmakers some grace on this account, but to be fair, I felt that Last Swim‘s ending literally ruined the film. What’s great about it is of course still great, but the film’s resolution felt like the kind of conclusion any screenplay-writing class or seminar would advise against, and rightly so. There is also the awkwardness of randomly sacrificing a “minor” character to grant the protagonist enlightenment.
That flaw hasn’t diminished Last Swim‘s brightness: so strong are its performances, its direction, its characterizations, its joie de vivre, that it’s wowed audiences at the Manchester Film Festival and won the Crystal Bear for Best Film in the Generation 14plus section and the AG Kino–Gilde–Cinema Vision 14Plus at Berlinale as well as a nomination for Best Film at the 2024 British Independent Film Awards. Those kudos are all well earned: Last Swim‘s delights mark Nathwani and Hakmat in particular as considerable talents for the future, and even despite its last-act misstep Last Swim makes for a thoughtful and unique coming-of-age drama.
Following its U.S. debut with a special one-night-only screening in Los Angeles, Last Swim releases on VOD platforms beginning July 25.
