The Swimmers Parent Guide

Sara and Yusra Mardini (played by Manal and Nathalie Issa) have a comfortable life in Damascus, Syria’s capital city. The champion swimmers train with their father, goof around at the community pool, spend time with their young sister, enjoy big get-togethers with their boisterous extended family, and dance the night away at a local club. Then the bombs start falling…

It’s 2011 and Syria’s version of the “Arab Spring” is met with a brutal military response from the government. As the country disintegrates into civil war, the Mardinis face a stark choice. They can remain in Damascus and hope bombs miss their home. Or the older girls can make the dangerous trek to Germany as refugees. Yusra is still a minor, and under German refugee law, she qualifies for asylum and the ability to apply for family reunification. When a mortar attack hits the pool during a swim meet, the decision is made. The girls have no future in Syria, so the siblings and their cousin, Nizar (Ahmed Malek), embark on a perilous trek across Europe.

The journey begins by plane to Turkey, followed by a bus trip to the coast, and then a boat ride to Greece. The refugees are horrified to discover that the boat that is supposed to take them across the Aegean Sea is a heavily patched rubber dinghy. Designed for six, the boat is overloaded with twenty refugees. When the dinghy starts to fill with water, the Mardini sisters come to the rescue, their aquatic skills saving the lives of their fellow passengers.

The Swimmers is one of the most emotionally intense movies I have ever seen. In fact, I had to take a break partway through to stop crying and collect myself. That isn’t meant as a deterrent: this is an excellent film and by retelling a riveting true story, it depicts the harrowing experiences and raw courage of so many of the millions of people desperately seeking asylum. I started crying when the girls’ parents had to decide which of the two terrible options they should choose. As a parent myself, I can’t imagine the anguish of sending teenagers off on a quest to save their families at such tremendous risk. I kept crying as the girls demonstrated their heroism at sea and as they faced cruelty and indifference across Europe. Thankfully, the angst lets up when the sisters gain asylum in Germany and can rebuild their lives – which for Yusra means focusing on her Olympic dreams.

Not surprisingly, a film so loaded with traumatic experiences comes with some negative content. There is an attempted sexual assault (without nudity), some distant war-related violence, and a comparatively small amount of profanity (including a single sexual expletive). For teen audiences, the positive elements of the film outweigh the content issues. This is a movie that fosters empathy for those who suffer and which can encourage entitled teenagers to take a good look at the hardships faced by those born in more troubled circumstances. The Swimmers also demonstrates that courage doesn’t come with superpowers and a spandex suit: courage is born from sacrifice, compassion, endurance, and grit.

Movies like this do their best to tell us who refugees are. Our response to their plight tells us who we are.