The ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Magpie’ actress faces the seas in Joachim Ronning’s portrait of Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim across the English Channel.

Gertrude Ederle loved the water. “To me, the sea is like a person — like a child I’ve known a long time,” she once said. “ I never feel alone when I’m out there.”  

Like all trailblazers, Ederle’s story began with obstacles and hostility, many of which director Joachim Rønning accords appropriate levels of respect in Young Woman and the Sea. The serviceable feature, whose screenplay is written by Jeff Nathanson, based on the book of the same name by Glenn Stout, traces Ederle’s inspiring journey from childhood swims around the Coney Island pier to her defining confrontation with the English Channel waves. 

There’s no shortage of shots (DP Oscar Faura) of Ridley, staring across bodies of water with awe and severity. Her shoulders rounded, poised to dive at a moment’s notice. While there’s some poignancy to these bits, most of the emotional profundity is undercut by Nathanson’s by-the-book screenplay. The delicate dramatic threads and subtext of Ederle’s life, then, like Netflix’s recent Nyad, become subsumed by Young Woman and the Sea’s blunt approach to storytelling.

From a young age, Trudy defied odds. Nathanson and Rønning move efficiently through her early life. We meet the swimmer in 1914 as a bedridden child battling measles. Her parents, worried she might not survive, brace themselves to lose a daughter. But Trudy pulls through and as soon as she is recovered, her mother, Gertrude (Jeanette Hain) tasks her father Henry (Kim Bodnia) with teaching young Trudy how to swim. Gertrude’s desire stems from a fatal accident, in which a ship full of women died because they couldn’t swim to shore. Because Trudy had measles, she is not allowed in public pools. She learns to swim in the Coney Island pier, which establishes her relationship and comfort with rougher waters. 

The action in Young Woman and the Sea properly kicks off when Gertrude enrolls Trudy and her sister Meg (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) in competitive swim lessons as soon as women are allowed. A critical thread throughout Rønning’s film is the instrumental role Trudy’s mother had in her life. The two share a similar kind of determination, with neither of them willing to take no for an answer.

Ridley holds her own as Trudy. She plays the character’s awkwardness and introversion in a way that recalls the protagonist of Sometimes I Think About Dying. The actress gives a convincing physical performance, too, both in the water (with the help of some doubles) and on land. 

The accolades soon start coming. Trudy wins local competitions and national ones. Eventually, she’s invited to join the U.S. women’s Olympic team and compete in Paris. These experiences sharpen her own visions for herself. As Trudy nurses a dream of swimming the English Channel, her sister Meg conforms to expectations of her time. She stops swimming, agrees to an arranged marriage and begins working at the family butcher shop.

Ridley and Cobham-Hervey have a natural chemistry, which bolsters the sibling dynamic that becomes the heart of Young Woman and the Sea. Both actresses give fine performances and make the most of their characters’ shared screen time. Particularly charming moments include when the sisters conspire to get rid of Trudy’s sour date and later when Meg helps Trudy with her plans to swim the Channel.