GUEST COLUMN: If Swimfan Were Made Today

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If Swimfan Were Made Today

by Devin Caldwell

The 2002 film Swimfan, while making a significant amount at the box office, was not given very good reviews upon release. Twenty years later, the film has not aged very well, and there are a lot of things that would need to be changed to fit how things are today. Consider the following changes that would need to be made to the story if Swimfan were made today.

Madison Would Need to Put More Work into Stalking

The main premise of the movie is that a guy's life is falling into ruin after his one-night stand becomes obsessed with him and does anything that she can in order to eliminate people close to him and destroy his life and reputation. However, even though Madison had a lot of energy and put a lot of thought into what she was going to do, she would have to make some changes to make the movie more believable and interesting.

Firstly, one of Madison's early tactics would be up against the cultural movement where no means no, or yes means yes. She seduced Ben in an inground pools Mobile despite him not wanting to at first. Ben was pressured into having sex with her, something that might not fly in a teen movie now.

Secondly, if she wanted to spam Ben, she would need to do something other than email. While the adult world seems to be run by email, teens do not do that much emailing. She would need at least a few social media accounts on various platforms to create more mystery and excitement. She does not do enough in the movie to be truly psychologically damaging, and she is lazy in her outsourcing. If she were to set up fake accounts and get more obscure people to do her dirty work for her.

Lastly, when she ran Amy off the road, Madison did not need to worry about such things as built-in GPS or location tracking on a smartphone. If the movie was made today, she would need to make sure that she turned her location off, but if she were to successfully frame Ben for Amy's accident, she would need to steal his phone as well.

Ben Might Not Need to Worry About Steroids

Less than a quarter of high schools in the United States test for any steroids or doping, so it is highly unlikely that Ben would get caught for doping. A more efficient way to debilitate him would be to poison something such as a mobilify supplement. Such supplements are used to improve joint mobility and are designed to help athletes maintain performance while not having to worry about completely destroying their joints. If Ben were to take one of those supplements, he would probably have a bottle in his gym bag or locker. Since Jake is the one that was responsible for planting the steroids on Ben, he could just as easily tamper with a supplement bottle that would most likely already be open.

Change the Ending

Ben and Amy would probably not want to go near another pool after everything Madison did, so it makes no sense that they are just comfortable with watching a swim meet. Watching Ben drop the team and go off with Amy to get away from the town would make more sense, especially after all of the trauma that they would have endured up to that point.

Swimfan would need a lot of overhauling if it were to be remade today. Hopefully, with some rewriting and introducing more of a complex line of activity into the story, it would be a bigger box office hit while also teaching the audience some things.