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Swimming With Sharks Is Your Next Pulpy, Queer-Inclusive Guilty Pleasure 

Swimming With Sharks Is Your Next Pulpy, Queer-Inclusive Guilty Pleasure 

Kiernan Shipka in Roku Original "Swimming with Sharks"
Courtesy of The Roku Channel

Kiernan Shipka and Diane Kruger star in this erotic thriller series about sex, power, and rivalry.

Obsession, murder, mysterious tattoos, dick pics -- Swimming With Sharks has it all. The first two episodes of this upcoming Roku original premiered at SXSW, and if they're any indication of what's to come, this is going to be your pulpy new guilty pleasure -- emphasis on pleasure.

Lou Simms's (Kiernan Shipka) story may at first sound familiar: A young ingenue makes her way from middle America to Hollywood intent on "making it," only to be confronted with the industrial machine of misogyny and exploitation that all too often chews people up and spits them out. But despite her (intentionally crafted) naive appearance, Lou is not your average inexperienced young woman; she has an agenda and it involves ingratiating and insinuating herself into the life of Hollywood executive Joyce Holt (Diane Kruger).

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It's unclear if she wants to be close to her, replace her, or simply destroy her; what's clear is that she's willing to do whatever it takes -- with a degree of patience and a knowing smile that's equally intriguing as it is unnerving. Flashbacks hint at a dark history yet to be fully revealed.

Joyce is also embroiled in a cold war of her own with the studio owner, Redmond (Donald Sutherland), a grotesque predator who always seems just on the cusp of dying and leaving the company to her. It's a fact he uses to ruthlessly exploit her. It's grim stuff, particularly following #MeToo, but Swimming leans into the lurid rather than offering any real social commentary. How you feel about that may greatly impact or increase your enjoyment of the whole affair.

The series is also populated with queer characters. Lou herself seems heteroflexible at the very least, and Travis (Thomas Dekker), half of the two-person assistant team alongside Alex (Ross Butler) who are the closest to Joyce -- and thus an obstacle to be overcome by Lou -- is unapologetically queer and liable to flash a dick pic of his next Grindr hookup at a table full of coworkers before downing a shot of Don Julio (on Lou's dime) and bouncing out the door. Whether he proves to be an ally or a foe remains to be seen, but what's clear is that watching Dekker chew up the scenery is a campy delight.

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caption="" photo_credit=""]It's all in keeping with the spirit of the show, which leans hard into both the camp and seediness. Add to that a compelling mystery and two fascinating, complex performances by its two female leads, and you end up with a compulsively watchable erotic thriller.

Swimming With Sharks made its world premiere at SXSW and will hit Roku April 15. This review is part of our coverage of the SXSW 2022 Film Festival. Watch the trailer below.

30 Years of Out100Out / Advocate Magazine - Jonathan Groff & Wayne Brady

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