Swirl

Rating

Director

Les Wilson

Screenplay

Les Wilson

Length

1h 25m

Starring

Carl Anthony Payne II, Stephanie Denise Griffin, Phill Ragland, Robert ‘Roby’ Hutchinson

MPAA Rating

R (For language and sexual dialogue)

Review

PREFACE:
In the early 2000s, I was writing reviews for an outfit called Apollo Guide Reviews. That website has since been closed down.

Attempting to reconstruct those reviews has been an exercise in frustration. Having sent them to Apollo Guide via email on a server I no longer have access to (and which probably doesn’t have records going back that far), my only option was to dig through The Wayback Machine to see if I could find them there. Unfortunately, while I found a number of reviews, a handful of them have disappeared into the ether. At this point, almost two decades later, it is rather unlikely that I will find them again.

Luckily, I was able to locate my original review of this particular film. Please note that I was not doing my own editing at the time, Apollo Guide was. As such, there may be more than your standard number of grammatical and spelling errors in this review. In an attempt to preserve what my style had been like back then, I am not re-editing these reviews, which are presented as-is.

REVIEW:
Swirl tells the story of two advertising executives who embark on an interracial relationship that threatens their friendship and their careers.

Swirl, a title drawn from a term used to describe interracial relationships, stars Carl Anthony Payne II as Beethoven and Stephanie Denise Griffin as Sarah, childhood friends who start an advertising agency together. Their decision to move in together begins a slow ride toward destruction. Bay (the short version of Beethoven’s name), a black man, and Sarah, a white woman, have known each other for many years, having played together as children. Sarah has decided she wants to move on to the next stage in their relationship by getting involved romantically. She attempts many different methods to get involved with Bay and eventually they begin their relationship.

The problem is that Bay doesn’t believe in interracial relationships and develops severe doubts about his relationship with his best friend. His buddies are supportive, but his conscience is not. Taking the guise of a black woman, Bay’s subconscious takes great pains to convince him that his relationship is immoral and attempts to sabotage its future. Matters escalate further when they receive a high-paying ad contract and Sarah, in an attempt to stem the tide of one of her employer’s advances, reveals to him that she and Bay are involved. While the man isn’t opposed, his comments to a co-worker lead to the collapse of the contract offer and cause an intense rift between tell-the-world Sarah and keep-it-secret Beethoven.

Payne does a wonderful job balancing his performance opposite a cast of relative lightweights. His sympathetic hero allows the audience to better understand his moral dilemma and support his eventual decision. On the other hand, Griffin gives a transparent performance that lacks any range of emotion and borders on comical. Her role as the naïve, but loving partner is ineffectual, causing the audience to never grow attached to her otherwise bubbly personality. The remaining performers, a cadre of stereotypical characters, are dull, unenergetic and lacking focus.

The greatest problem the film has is its weak screenplay, by Les Wilson, who also acts as the film’s director. The story is a mish-mash of romantic events that span the breadth of an hour and a half. It feels like the film drags on through eternity and rambles to a conclusion that leaves you in suspense of the ultimate fate of these supposedly destined lovers.

Swirl is a painful mess that is only partially saved by Payne’s believable performance. The movie plays like an after-school special designed for adults with hokey characters and a paper-thin plot. Some audiences will enjoy its wit-deprived ramblings but a more discerning group will find very little of merit.

Review Written

June 2, 2003