The Song of Sway Lake (2019)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Too much of everything

Thanks for the memories!

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Sway Lake and summer go together like sun and hammocks .. or martinis and olives. Ari Gold's The Song of Sway Lake was actually released on June 21, the first day of summer! Location? A swanky lake house in the Adirondacks -- a dazzling paradise for swell-egant parties of the New York jazz-age upper crust. Sway. It's not a common word but it conjures up sensual images of hips, dancing, bourbon and Gershwin. It could mean swing, undulate, guide, persuade. From the opening, rather erotic, underwater scene, The Song of Sway Lake blends the dreamy and the realistic, the mystical and the practical, blurring the lines between the ephemeral and the concrete, the past and the now. The first plunge into the lake is both a dip into misty memory and a crisp splash to erase it. The cinematic period piece makes the viewer feel as if he/she is floating back in time...hearing the silver tones of Ethan Gold's mesmerizing melody, crooned by both John Grant and the Staves (Andrews Sisters reincarnated) is almost like being drawn in by the Sirens -- only we're not in Ancient Greece. We're not even in the 1940's. We're back in the 1990's...but completely sweetened by reminiscence.In fact, reminiscence permeates the film, from plot to soundtrack. From the opening montage, one feels the pull (dare I say sway) of a time gone by, hovering in a '40's haze. Ethan's music is as haunting as the film - it's a blend of misty and crisp. Cole Porter or Ethan Gold ? The soundtrack title song wafts through the film with charcoal smokiness. I truly can't get the Song of Sway Lake melody out of my head -- nor do I want to. It's totally addictive and liquid like the lake, yet solid like a long-lasting sliver of art, rock or humanity. As I see it, there are two types of people: those who are nostalgic and those who aren't. Proust nailed it with his Madeleine moment. With Song of Sway Lake, filmmaker Ari gold and twin brother, composer Ethan Gold appear to be members of the former club. A maestro of cinema, Ari paints the screen with wide, elegant brushstrokes of memory, sprinkled with speckles of here-and-now. Plot? Jazz music collector Ollie Sway (the soul-searching, fiery Rory Culkin), grandson of Charlie (divinely timeless, elegant Mary Beth Peil), the owner of the magical house on Sway Lake, is on a mission to find a valuable record -- the only pressed 78 recording of her wedding song. He enlists his rough-around-the-edges Russian drifter friend (charming Robert Sheehan) to help steal the record from his wealthy grandmother 's estate. There's even a rather enchanting if offbeat, romantic seesaw sway between Charlie and her grandson's comrade. Theme? The tug between grasping tidbits of our past, archiving our detailed lives vs. letting go, living in the present. Style? Eric Rohmer meets Wes Anderson.The Brazilians think that melancholy and bliss are connected. Perhaps the Gold brothers are part Brazilian --the translucent lake scintillates with the fragility of life and the permanence of death -- the fascination with murkiness and fear of finality. Ultimately, Song of Sway Lake glistens. Like our lives, it is layered with dissonance and harmony, raw in texture. It is both evocative and haunting.

Saw this film recently and found it mesmerizing! The scenery is spectacular , the acting by Rory Culkin, Robert Sheehan & Mary Beth Peil is superb and the music by Ethan Gold is very evocative of a bygone era! This film is currently on the festival circuit. See it if you can. Deserves a wide cinema release. Makes a change from all the action films. Beautifully observed work. The director Ari Gold deserves praise for the quality of the film. Simply stunning. No spoilers here but if you like to be entertained without loud music and like a genuinely heart- felt story you will love this! 10/10 Must See!

This is a good movie, with several well-defined and strongly portrayed characters. The first few minutes of the movie were the weakest, with some voice-over and some scenes from the past that would have been better presented as flashbacks later in the movie, once we are invested in the characters and the story.Recommended.Note. It was a pleasant surprise to see Elizabeth Pena in a new movie, three years after her untimely death. It was a small role, but one with heart, worthy of her.

In 1992, Ollie (Rory Culkin) and his Russian friend Nikolai (Robert Sheehan) travel to Sway Lake and stay at the Ollie's family state where they hope to find a long lost Vinyl record of great value. Ollie is somewhat of a loser while Nikolai is a live-wire. The search for the long lost record is complicated by the arrival of Ollie's grandmother Charlie (Mary Beth Peil) who has fallen on hard times and hopes to sell the state. But she too wants to find the record that was specifically made by a swing vocalist for her wedding day back in post-WW2 times.THE SONG OF SWAY LAKE is directed by Ari Gold as a coming of age story for our two young pals in search of a unique vinyl record. It's also about legacy and what it means to leave something behind to be remembered. Ollie's grandfather was a war hero, and the Lake is name after him (Sway being the family name) as well as that record being specifically recorder for his grandfather on his wedding day, this record was going to have value someday and it was left at the state for future generations of the Sway family to find. However, the value given to it will depend of those who find it; it can either be monetary or it can be deeper than that. Ollie believes the record is rightfully his, while his friend Nikolai may have his own plans for the record, as he seduces (perhaps honestly) Charlie, despite being thrice his senior. THE SONG OF SWAY LAKE is hard to label, and therefore its value is that it's an unconventional story that avoids a formula, it tells its story like a recount of someone's memories, an anecdote rather than a by the numbers script, which makes it and its characters feel real as we witness the story of two generations of the Sway family. It's a drama and a comedy, sometimes even a tragedy. In many ways this is closer to real life, where there are moments of levity followed by moments of anguish. Review by Enrrico Wood Lagonigro –Senior Curator Oaxaca FilmFest