Swimfan

A decent (if completely forgettable) thriller, Swimfan follows Jesse Bradford’s Ben Cronin as he impulsively sleeps with the new girl at school (Erika Christensen’s Madison) and subsequently finds himself on the receiving end of Madison’s increasingly unhinged attention. Filmmaker John Polson, working from a screenplay by Charles Bohl and Phillip Schneider, delivers a briskly-paced endeavor that hits most of the touchstones one associates with pictures of this ilk, with Swimfan‘s mild success certainly due in no small part to its unapologetic straight-from-a-template atmosphere (ie the movie satisfies the viewer’s craving for a blank-from-hell narrative on an ongoing basis). It’s clear, too, that the film benefits from the strong work of its two leads, although it remains fairly apparent that Christensen’s go-for-broke turn as the deranged stalker remains an ongoing highlight within the proceedings (ie in her hands, Madison surely becomes a memorably and appreciatively over-the-top villain). And though the whole thing does begin to evaporate from one’s memory moments after it concludes, Swimfan nevertheless comes off as a watchable genre exercise that does, for the most part, get the job done.

*** out of ****