Learn to Swim
**Seen for the 2022 Atlanta Film Festival.
I’ll admit that the structure of “Learn to Swim” threw me as the film was getting going. The longer it went on, however, I found myself increasingly sucked in by the story and style of Thyrone Tommy’s drama. It’s not often when, in a relatively straightforward narrative, that those two things are connected. The way they are here, you cannot help but become engaged with the film.
Dezi (Thomas Antony Olajide) is a jazz saxophonist in Toronto who’s getting away from a past relationship. In addition to isolating himself from the people who might become a support system for him, he’s also taking on a job as an instrument cleaner, which allows him some peace. As a new neighbor enters his life, however, and he has raging pain from an abscessed tooth, he must find a way through the physical pain of his present, and the emotional pain of his past.
Selma (Emma Ferreira) is a vocalist whom joins the jazz ensemble Dezi was a part of. The talent is certainly there, but the creative tension between the two both on stage, and in the bedroom, is palpable. Their relationship has imploded, but it leaves a mark on Dezi. In the way he builds this narrative, Tommy goes between the present with Dezi in Toronto and the past with Selma, almost making it feel like they are happening in a conventional structure, rather than a story which is filled with flashbacks. What this does is it allows Tommy to show us what happens when pain is piled upon pain for an individual. In that way, his choice to not change the visual pallet throughout the film makes for some confusion initially, but gives us a chance to become immersed fully in Dezi’s world. I’m not entirely sure that the approach works, but it makes it a compelling experience. At the very least, one will be able to appreciate the film’s musical soundtrack and Nick Haight’s cinematography, which give it a singularly rich feel as it follows Dezi’s journey.
