Swimming With Sharks Is Your Next Pulpy, Queer-Inclusive Guilty Pleasure
Swimming with Sharks has it all. The first two episodes of this upcoming Roku original premiered at SXSW and, if they’re any indication of what’s to come, this is going to be your pulpy new guilty pleasure — emphasis on pleasure.Lou Simms’ (Kiernan Shipka) story may at first sound familiar: A young ingenue makes her way from middle America to Hollywood intent on “making it”, only to be confronted with the industrial machine of misogyny and exploitation that all too often chews people up and spits them out.
But despite her (intentionally crafted) naive appearance Lou is not your average inexperienced young woman, she has an agenda and it involves ingratiating and insinuating herself into the life of Hollywood executive Joyce Holt (Diane Kruger).It’s unclear if she wants to be close to her, replace her, or simply destroy her; what’s clear is that she’s willing to do whatever it takes—with a degree of patience and a knowing smile that’s equally intriguing as it is unnerving.
Flashbacks hint at a dark history yet to be fully revealed.Joyce is also embroiled in a cold war of her own with the studio owner, Redmond (Donald Sutherland), a grotesque predator who always seems just on the cusp of dying and leaving the company to her.
It’s a fact he uses to ruthlessly exploit her. It’s grim stuff, particularly following #MeToo, but Swimming leans into the lurid, rather than offering any real social commentary.
