Swing Shift

Set during the Second World War, Swing Shift follows Goldie Hawn’s Kay Walsh as she’s forced to take on a job as a riveter after her husband (Ed Harris’ Jack) decides to enlist – with complications ensuing as Kay finds herself falling for a handsome coworker (Kurt Russell’s Lucky). There’s little doubt, ultimately, that Swing Shift fares best in its first half, as filmmaker Jonathan Demme does an effective job of establishing the various characters and their 1940s environs – with the movie certainly benefiting quite substantially from Hawn’s charismatic turn as the central character (and this is to saying nothing of the stellar work of a supporting cast that includes Christine Lahti and Fred Ward). It’s rather disappointing to note, then, that Swing Shift palpably does begin to lose its way as it passes a certain point, with Rob Morton’s screenplay increasingly emphasizing the central characters’ decidedly less-than-engrossing melodramatic exploits (eg the love triangle that eventually forms between Kay, Lucky, and their mutual friend, Lahti’s Hazel, is hardly as captivating as Demme has presumably intended). There’s subsequently little doubt that the whole thing peters out in the buildup to its somewhat anticlimactic finish, which ultimately does cement Swing Shift‘s place as an erratic yet mostly watchable period piece that could’ve been much better.

*** out of ****