Woodstock Film Festival 2009: "Against the Current"

"Against the Current" is a film about Paul Thompson, a writer for financial magazines, in Manhattan.  He decides to swim the length of the Hudson River, from Troy, New York to the Verrazano Bridge.  His best friend, Jeff, joins him, and so does Jeff's acquaintance, Liz.  The three adventurers buy a ramshackle boat, motor up to Troy, and Paul begins his swim.  A moment after he jumps in the water, Paul decides to quit: "It's too cold!"  But Jeff tells him, "No, we've come all this way.  You're swimming!"  And Paul does.

The cinematography by Sean Kirby is uncanny.  At times, the Hudson resembles the Amazon!  And when Paul passes a boat, the cameraman always focuses on its name.  (I'm a collector of boat-names.)

As he swims the Hudson, Paul becomes more and more monastic.  Swimming a river is like devoting your life to chanting.  It's proof of the progress which results from repetition.

Justin Kirk, who plays Jeff, gives the best performance I've seen in an American movie in the last 30 years.

"I didn't like the ending," a longhaired woman near me whispered to her friend, after the film.  Later I saw her tell Peter Callahan, the director: "I loved your film!"  I guess we're all hypocrites when we speak to film directors.  (I didn't tell Callahan I hated the music.)

"What was the longest Joseph Fiennes (who played Paul) stayed in the water at a given time?" a guy asked, during the question-and-answer session.

"Two or three minutes," Peter Callahan replied. 

One forgets that film is an inherently deceptive medium.

"Were you thinking of the Quadricentennial when you wrote it?" I inquired.

"Not at all!" Peter replied.  "I wrote the film in 2002."

Throughout "Against the Current," I found myself hoping my own stretch of the Hudson would appear -- that of Inwood (Manhattan), where I grew up, across from the lofty Palisades.  But it didn't.  After all the questions were over, I mentioned this to Peter Callahan, who replied, "We did shoot a scene in Inwood..."

"I didn't notice!" I replied.

"No, we left it out of the film," he apologized.

"Mary Tyler Moore is funny!" I told him.  He smiled in agreement.  (She plays Liz's annoying upper-middle-class mother.)

The next day, I attended the screenwriters panel.  Callahan was there.  "It's like a road movie, except on water," he said, explaining "Against the Current."

"Did any of the film mirror your own experiences?" the panel director asked.

Callahan smiled.  "Well, I never swam the length of the Hudson," he admitted.  "But I did swim across it once." 

My biggest unasked question: Did Callahan get product placement money from Coca-Cola?  (Paul is addicted to Coke, and drinks it throughout the movie.  When they stay at Mary Tyler Moore's house, where only Pepsi is available, he's visibly annoyed!)

Liz is played by Elizabeth Reaser.

For more information, see www.againstthecurrent.net.