Swimming is a little movie with an enormous impact. Frankie (Lauren Ambrose in a breakthrough performance) and her older brother Neil (Joseph Pais) operate Wheeler's, their family's boardwalk restaurant in Myrtle Beach, after their parents retired to Arizona. Frankie's best friend Nicola (Jennifer Dundas Lowe) is the proprietor of the piercing stand next door. Both young women are prepared for another boring summer of tourist trade and beachcombers when two new people arrive to change Frankie's life. Josee (Joelle Carter), the sexually confident girlfriend of lifeguard Brad (James Villenaire) is hired as a waitress at Wheeler's and Heath (Jamie Harold), a good-natured stoner who sells tie-die t-shirts out of the back of his van, tilt the axis of Frankie's world, sending her swimming in new waters. Frankie is unused to the kind of attention that she receives from both Josee and Heath, giving her a newfound assurance which effects her relationships with Nicola and Neil. Exceptionally well-acted (especially by Ambrose, Carter, and Harrold), gracefully directed (by Robert J. Siegel) and very well-scripted. Swimming is worth taking the plunge. (On a scale of 1 to 10: 8)

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