Young Woman and the Sea

The heroine is resolute and brave, with a rebellious spirit and fighting power; the heroine's mother is strong and neat, with the ability to take action and independent thinking. The world does not belong to men or women, but to innovators who are indomitable and have firm beliefs.

But apart from the expression of feminism, although the script and conflict are rigorous, the film itself cannot be said to be outstanding. In addition to many similar problems of flat characters, there is another mistake that second-rate biographical sports films often make: focusing on the time nodes and process of the protagonist's achievements, while being stingy with her personal efforts during this period. And there are many confusing plots in it. In addition, it is strange that this very "Hollywood" style neat film structure has a more abrupt ending. After reading historical materials and biographies with doubts, I found many adaptations that caused incoherence, irrationality, and even very bad plots:

1. The heroine's family is not poor, but "very rich". For example, when the heroine was a child, her family had a beach house, and she once paid $1,000 to learn a new swimming style from a female swimmer she met by chance.

2. Compared with the mother, the father was more supportive of the sisters' swimming career at the beginning. It was the father who advocated sending her to the swimming association. The mother changed her attitude only after the heroine achieved results.

3. The ship explosion at the beginning did inspire someone to believe that "women should also learn to swim", but this person was Charlotte (a female coach). She founded the Women's Swimming Association in 1917. As soon as the association was established, it received strong support and donations from all walks of life.

4. The person who actually trained the heroine in swimming was Handley, a famous feminist in the swimming world at the time who advocated gender equality. He also improved the freestyle stroke to make it more suitable for women.

5. The U.S. Olympic Committee has never sponsored a female swimmer. The sponsor has always been the Women's Swimming Association.

6. Coach Wolfe had various conflicts with the heroine due to arrogance, gender bias, personality incompatibility, training methods, and scheduling. The relationship between the two was extremely bad, and Wolfe even sexually harassed her more than once. But there is no evidence that Wolfe drugged her. This plot occurred because the heroine's diet plan during training, including the energy replenishment arrangements during the training, was made by Wolfe, so Trudy had doubts afterwards, but the diet was made by Trudy's assistant, so Trudy and the Women's Swimming Association did not publicly accuse her.

7. Wolfe did not try to contact the heroine during the crossing. After the heroine felt extremely nauseous and wanted to vomit, Wolfe insisted on ending the crossing and directed others to rescue the heroine and get her on the boat. This was confirmed by the head of the female swimming association who was also on the boat.

8. Trudy's two Channel crossings were planned one year apart

9. Before the second crossing of the channel, it was the heroine's father, not the coach, who promised the heroine that he would never stop unless she gave up.

10. The heroine encountered a shallow beach 5 miles from the coast, but she never had the choice of "swimming across alone". Trudy had to either turn with the boat and cross the current or give up. Coach Burgess and the captain chose the latter for safety reasons, while her father and sister insisted on the former. Finally, after her father explained the situation, Trudy chose to continue.

11. At that time, sports were becoming more commercialized. Women's sports, including women's swimming, were in full swing, and swimming across the English Channel was just one of them. While Trudy was training, many male and female swimmers were also doing this training, all with the goal of becoming sports stars like the heroine.

12. Before Trudy started to cross the English Channel, her father and sister made a series of plans and designs for the commercial value she might create, including endorsements and a large number of commercial performances. After Trudy succeeded, they received a total of more than $1 million in business offers.

13. After Trudy successfully crossed the English Channel, she delayed her return to the United States and went on a commercial tour in Europe with her family, mainly visiting her hometown in Germany.

14. More than 20 days after Trudy successfully crossed the English Channel, the family returned to New York, and Trudy received a tsunami-like welcome. But the day after returning to the United States, Gad Cossen became the second female swimmer to successfully cross the English Channel, and then another male swimmer broke Trudy's time record.

Let me first talk about my biggest feeling: "Swimmer's Heart" is really good and worth going to the cinema to watch.

I cried several times during the movie, but not because of the pain or the film's depiction of pain, but because I felt the strength of the heroine, Trudy Edel. In fact, although this film also involves injuries, obstacles, and the plight of female athletes, it does not spend a lot of time to depict these pains, but focuses more on the heroine's struggle with the swimming pool and the ocean.

What moved me was not how much she could endure the pain, or how difficult the journey was, but how much she wanted to achieve her wish, kept doing it, and did it.

Her strength is not reflected by the social difficulties, but she is strong in herself. This is what "Swimmer's Heart" does very well, and it is also very Disney.

What can a 20-year-old girl do?

The book "Swimmer's Heart" says that she was not in love and refused the marriage arranged by her father. She was a swimmer who had competed in the Olympics. Under the watchful eyes of the entire country and despite the disapproval of the official coaching team, she swam across the English Channel and was the first woman to cross the English Channel, nearly two hours faster than the men's record. This record was not broken until 35 years later.

A 20-year-old girl can do anything.

The film is adapted from a true story and focuses on Trudy Edel, the first woman in history to swim across the English Channel. The end credits said that she died in 2003 at the age of 98. I immediately estimated her age and found that she was only 21 or 22 years old when she completed this feat.

Disney's stories are certainly not inferior to those in the entire film industry in terms of their excitement and completeness.

Screenwriter Jeff Nathanson, who wrote The Lion King, is very good at this kind of inspirational growth theme. It can be said that this movie is impeccable in terms of structure, narrative, characters, and performance.

The film starts with the childhood of a little girl named Trudy Edel, laying out everything well. In the early 20th century, a ship caught fire on the Manhattan River. Although the ship was not far from the river bank, it caused the death of more than 1,000 passengers. Most of them were women and children, and the most important reason was that they could not swim. In that era, most sports were taboos for women, let alone swimming.

Where there are taboos, there are challenges to the taboos.

The things we enjoy now were not taboos a hundred years ago. But there are always brave people who take risks and expand the boundaries for those who come after them.

Behind every successful woman, there are countless men and women who support her: the sisters who grew up with Trudy Edel, her housewife mother who is unwilling to lag behind, her chauvinistic but tough-mouthed but soft-hearted German father, and her resolute, cold-blooded but insightful female coach.

Here we see a very touching female friendship. Mother and daughter, sisters, master and apprentice, there is no man between them, but they directly support each other and trust each other. When sister Margaret jumped into the cold water to accompany Trudy to swim across the English Channel, we know that no matter what path they took in the past because of fate, they will always accompany each other on this important journey. "Swimmer's Heart" depicts male coaches and bureaucrats who envy women's success, and also describes male coaches and announcers who admire brave young people. The perspective is also relatively fair.

In addition to female friendship and interpersonal relationships, what moved me most was of course the whole process of Trudy Edel fighting the sea. Actress Daisy Ridley also received three months of professional swimming training before filming.

Interpersonal relationships certainly gave her the necessary support, but she was like an elf. Apart from her sisters and family, she didn't particularly care about any other humans. She was not trapped by interpersonal relationships and only wanted to do her swimming career well.

Two years ago I started to really enjoy participating in non-confrontational sports.

Swimming is a good choice. You don't have to compete with others, just yourself, the sky, and time. You know that every second you are better than the last second.

In recent years, many sports-themed films, especially those about women’s sports, have emerged on the screen. Such themes have also expanded the scope of “confrontation” for female audiences and increased their courage to move forward.

Competitive sports allow you to feel your own strength more concretely. To put it bluntly, people are in confrontation all the time, but some confrontations are more strenuous, while some are easy for you to catch, so you don't feel it is a confrontation. When our feet are firmly on the ground, we have overcome many forces that try to make us fall. Instead of being washed away by the water, it is better to move forward bravely.

The design of the climax segments in "Swimmer's Heart" is quite progressive and metaphorical.

At first, all her family and friends, including reporters, accompanied her on the voyage.

Later, as the sea became deeper, the reporters began to fall behind.

Later, her sisters accompanied her in swimming in the sea for a while, but she was exhausted and went back to walking alone.

During the most difficult and dangerous part of crossing the strait, the navigator told Trudy Edel to follow the ocean current. Even though this would add two-thirds of the distance, she would go with the flow and would not be easily swept away. Even if she drifted on the sea and did nothing, she would already be moving at a speed of 2-3 kilometers per hour.

Finally, they entered a sea full of reefs, and the pilot boat had to make a detour, but in this way, Trudy completely lost her direction and could only move forward based on her intuition and experience. No one could accompany her anymore, and no one could tell her what to do anymore.

When everyone thought she was going to fail, some British people, inspired by her courage, spontaneously lit a bonfire on the river bank to guide her. Isn't this a kind of sportsmanship of "the peach and plum trees are silent, but the paths are formed by people walking under them"?

With the help of these little sparks, Trudy Eder found her direction, found the river bank, and put an end to the crossing, providing a great guide for women's participation in sports.

She was not trying to change her fate. She was just going against the irrational man-made systems in Europe and America at that time. She was just showing her potential and restoring things to the way they should be.

What was the price? Of course there was one. She contracted otitis media in her childhood, and soon after completing the crossing, Trudy Eder became permanently deaf and devoted her life to swimming training and teaching. Her life was related to swimming. The sea took away the sounds she could hear, but also gave her back.

Source: Information Times, December 7, 2003

In 1926, American athlete Seth Edel set out from Cape Nez, France, and arrived in Dover, England, 14 hours and 39 minutes later, becoming the first woman to cross the English Channel. After becoming famous, Edel worked as a water singer and dancer, acted in movies, and even nearly became paralyzed for life because of a fall. On November 30, after 77 years of fame, Edel passed away in New York at the age of 98.

Challenge Nature

Proving that women can also cross the strait

In 2001, during the 75th anniversary of her crossing the English Channel, Edel told an Associated Press reporter who came to interview her, "People said women couldn't cross the Channel, but I proved them wrong. We can do it!"

Edel was born in New York in 1906. On August 6, 1926, when she was only 20 years old, she set out from Cape Nez, France, ready to swim to Dover, England. Before her, only five men had successfully crossed the English Channel. The weather that day was very bad, and Edel set out at 7:05 in the morning. Two ships followed her far behind, one carrying her family and friends, and the other full of journalists and photographers. The phonograph on the ship kept playing sonorous music, and everyone sang loudly to cheer her up along the way.

But soon after Edel entered the water, a storm began to hit the channel. The water was icy and the fog was so thick that she could hardly see her rescue boat. Sharks swam beside her alone, only to be driven away by rifle fire. The swells raised by the wind also severely hampered her progress, and she struggled to keep from being swallowed by the waves - for hours - while millions of people watched live on national television.

Someone on the boat started vomiting because of seasickness, and everyone seemed worried, fearing that Edel wouldn't be able to handle it.

"I had to joke with them along the way to cheer them up," Edel recalled in an interview. "At first, everyone seemed very excited and kept singing love songs like "Sweetheart, Let Me Call You," "Sweet Rose" and "After the Dance." When the storm got stronger and stronger, they all lost their spirits. Their expressions were like they were attending a funeral. Once I stopped, they would jump and ask, "Edel, what happened? Are you okay?"

There were several times when the situation was so dangerous due to the strong wind and waves that Edel's coach could not help but persuade her to give up. But every time Edel looked up and asked him, "Why give up?" This episode quickly spread, so that when Edel successfully swam to shore, the onlookers shouted to her, "Hello, 'Miss Why'!"

Breaking records

Elected the greatest female athlete

With unremitting efforts, Edel finally succeeded in crossing the English Channel with amazing willpower. The English Channel is 21 miles wide, and Edel swam a total of 35 miles, which took 14 hours and 39 minutes. Not only did she become the first woman to accomplish this feat, she also broke the previous record held by a man by 2 hours! The record created by Edel remained for 24 years. In 1950, swimmer Florence Chadwick successfully crossed the channel in 13 hours and 20 minutes.

Long before she crossed the English Channel, Eder was already a champion swimmer, breaking world records in several swimming events, and in 1924 she won three medals at the Paris Olympics, including a gold in the 4×100 relay.

In 1925, she swam from Manhattan upstream to Sandy Hook, 21 miles away, in a little over 7 hours, breaking the record held by other men. In the same year, she tried to cross the English Channel for the first time, but failed because she suddenly coughed halfway through and her coach couldn't help but grab her arm. According to the rules, no one was allowed to touch her during her crossing of the channel, and Edel was eventually disqualified.

In 1926, when this American heroine completed her feat and returned triumphantly, nearly 2 million New Yorkers and socialites lined Broadway to welcome her. The mayor of New York even compared her feat to Moses parting the Red Sea and Caesar crossing the Rubicon. Edel was also received by then-US President Calvin Coolidge. Her feat finally made her go down in history - ranked 42nd on the list of the "100 Greatest Female Athletes of the 20th Century".

Overnight success

Dressed simply for filming and dancing

After returning to New York, Edel signed a two-year contract with Morris Company to participate in the company's water song and dance performance. She also worked with actor Daniel in the autobiographical film "Swim, Girl, Swim", and a song and a dance named after her quickly became popular across the United States. However, Edel's fame did not last long, and she was not used to the great pressure she had to bear under the public eye. Less than a month after she crossed the English Channel, a woman named Amelia also successfully crossed the channel.

Edel's hearing had always been poor due to measles as a child, and this crossing also cost Edel a heavy price - her hearing was severely damaged, and in the 1940s, she was almost completely deaf.

After becoming famous, Edel still lives an ordinary life, and fame has not caused her too much trouble. A reporter even described her like this: "Compared with other swimmers, she is almost a girl dressed in an old-fashioned way." Her teammate Eileen said that Edel is still a girl with a sweet smile, has her own ideas, and even writes poems.

Overcoming injuries

Dedicate the rest of your life to deaf and mute children

In 1933, Edel unfortunately fell from the ladder of an airplane and broke her spine. Her injuries were so serious that 19 neurologists claimed that she might be paralyzed. This was tantamount to sentencing her swimming career to death. Just when everyone was regretting it, she overcame the disease with her strong will. In 1939, she miraculously appeared in a water song and dance show at the New York World Trade Center.

Like other American women, Edel was employed by an airline during World War II. After the war, she originally planned to become a full-time swimming coach, but she failed to do so because of her deafness. In the end, she chose to teach deaf-mute children to swim. She was very calm when getting along with children: "I can't hear any sound, but they can feel that I am one of them." Edel rarely accepted media interviews later. She lived quietly in Queens, New York for many years. Her room was full of photos and certificates of swimming in the past - she still missed swimming.

In the 1950s, Edel once confessed in an interview that perhaps sums up her life: "I have no complaints. I live a comfortable and satisfied life. I am not the kind of person who looks at the moon after reaching for the stars. God has been good enough to me."

How difficult it is to cross the strait

The English Channel is part of the Atlantic Ocean, located between England and France. Its widest part in the southwest is 240 kilometers, and its narrowest part in the northeast is 33.8 kilometers in a straight line, that is, from Dover in the UK to Calais in France. The part of the channel from Dover to Calais is the crossing area recognized by the British Channel Association. Although the distance from Dover to Calais is less than 1/3 of the Bohai Strait, its difficulty is not simply measured by distance. The average water temperature of the English Channel is 13.6 degrees Celsius.

The obstacles faced in crossing the English Channel include: long distance, low water temperature, unpredictable weather, and tides that roll back and forth between the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea every 6 hours or so. The biggest obstacle is the cold sea water. About 80% of the failures had to quit midway because their body temperature dropped too low.

There is a rule for crossing the English Channel, which means that there must be supervision by formal referees, navigators, pilots, etc., and no auxiliary equipment is allowed. Although you can wear a permeable swimsuit and eat during the crossing, you are not allowed to touch any floating objects.

"She can't swim a third of the way" "I bet she'll die in the sea" In a completely male-dominated society, challenging the male field only brings prejudice, hatred and malice. But Trudy, a 20-year-old girl, took only 14 hours and 31 minutes to overcome the changing ocean currents, deadly jellyfish, dark shallows... and completed the challenge of crossing the English Channel with a straight line distance of 34 miles (due to changes in the ocean currents and other reasons, the longest distance can reach 80 miles). At that time, only 5 men succeeded in the challenge. Trudy's performance was even nearly 2 hours faster than the record. This is a story that happened 100 years ago. His sponsor said: "Women can no longer win." Why? Because it was 1926, the first feminist movement in the United States had just ended. Women finally got the right to vote in 1920. Men, panic! Girls can't learn to swim, girls can't participate in sports, and girls can't even fall in love freely, let alone control their own destiny, do what they want to do, and be who they want to be. But Trudy's appearance tells all women: No! You can! Moreover, you can do better than men❗️ Simone de Beauvoir said: Women are not born, but made. Trudy is the best example. Her courage and never-give-up spirit have encouraged generations of women to break through the shackles of gender and become the masters of their own lives. It is not an exaggeration to call her a "hero". Not long after completing the crossing, Trudy became completely deaf. We almost forgot that she had defeated the deadly measles and moved forward with an imperfect body. Her "starting point" was behind others, but she never gave up and turned the "impossible" into possible, and finally won the respect of the entire male world. I haven't had such tears in my eyes for a long time. I recommend it to female friends all over the world❗️ "Young Woman and the Sea" "Young Woman and the Sea" is worth your visit to the cinema❤️

Last week I went to the cinema and watched a movie I really liked, Yong Woman and the Sea. It was translated as "Swimmer's Heart" in mainland China, but I prefer the name "Woman and the Sea".

The film tells the story of a woman named Trudy, who, in an era when women were not allowed to swim (I couldn't help but sigh when watching it, the United States 100 years ago is really different from today, but our country doesn't seem to have changed much...), not only broke the shackles and prejudices, insisted on learning to swim, but also swam very well. Not only did she represent the United States in the Olympic women's swimming competition, she also overcame man-made obstacles and natural obstacles and became the first woman in history to cross the English Channel across 34 kilometers.

What is most touching is Trudy's vigorous vitality.

When she was dying of urticaria and everyone thought she would not survive the night, she got better; when she wanted to get a free hot dog by winning the swimming competition like the boys, and her father told her that girls should not learn swimming and that he could give her money to buy a hot dog, she decisively refused and stubbornly said "I want it" and "I want to win" again and again.

When she had just learned to swim and was obviously slower than others, falling behind at the starting line of the race, she unexpectedly won the race with her attitude of not giving up. When everyone thought she had given up swimming, obeyed the arrangements of the times, and lived a life arranged for her like all other women, she decided to break through the so-called arrangements of fate and social prejudices and decided to swim across the English Channel.

When everyone thought she had given up in the face of failure and was ready to pack up and go home, she decided to set out again and face the challenge once again; when she lost her way and everyone thought she had died in the sea, she used up her last bit of strength to swim towards the shore step by step in the vast ocean, becoming the first woman to cross the English Channel...

After watching it, I watched another similar movie, "Nyad". At the age of 60, Nyad decided to complete something she had tried and failed 30 years ago, swimming from Cuba to Florida. She spent 4 years on the challenge, tried 5 times, failed, tried again, failed, and tried again. Finally, at the age of 64, she swam for more than 50 hours and became the first person to complete this "Mount Everest" of swimming without a shark cage.