Behind the Scenes of YOUNG WOMAN AND THE SEA
By Ted Baehr
THE YOUNG WOMAN AND THE SEA is one of the best movies of 2024. It tells the true story of a true young woman named Trudy Eberle who almost died of a deadly disease in the 1914.
When she miraculously recovers, she hears about a boatload of women crossing from New Jersey to New York who died from a fire on the boat. She asked her mother why the women didn’t swim to safety to the shore which was very close and learns that most women at the time were not taught to swim. So, she makes up her mind to learn to swim, when women were not taught to swim and her disease excluded her from swimming because she would lose her hearing (which she eventually did lose).
MOVIEGUIDE® has screened this movie several times and is impressed with all the faith references in the movie. For example, there are several references to the hand of God, references to the women on the boat that caught fire who were members of a local church group, nuns and crucifixes in a Christian hospital, and several silent prayers which were answered.
One of the executive producers, Daisy Ridley, who starred in the movie, said the move was about Trudy’s passion and love of swimming and the love of the family for one another. In fact, Daisy said there was a great deal of love on the set between the cast who played the parents and the siblings of Trudy.
Jeff Nathanson, who wrote the script and has done several favorite MOVIEGUIDE® movies such as THE TERMINAL and the live action LION KING movie, described the eight-year journey it took to get YOUNG WOMAN AND THE SEA made. He also wrote the movie in part for his daughters.
Director Joachim Rønning, who did the MOVIEGUIDE® Award-winning movie PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES, said Daisy was afraid of open ocean swimming but did so without complaining. In fact, she actually spent hours in the water with very strong strokes, so they didn’t have to use CGI. Again, Joachim said when he made movies he was away from his family for years, so he made THE YOUNG WOMAN AND THE SEA for his daughters, who were teenagers.
THE YOUNG WOMAN AND THE SEA is a movie about love and bravery. Of course, there are elements about women breaking through certain cultural barriers, but that’s merely the background of this true story, which is uplifting and extremely entertaining.
Daisy Ridley concluded, “But also the fact that I always found that the love story between the sisters, for me was the most important thing…and I feel that in many ways, Trudy actually has a lot of freedom, like she is going and doing what she wants to do, even though she has to overcome so much to do it, she actually is doing that.”
- Content: +3Share:
- Content: +4