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The Young Woman and the Sea is a biography of world record-holder swimmer Gertrude Caroline Ederle, also known as Trudy. The movie explores the life of Trudy and her journey to become the “Queen of Waves.” She was the first woman to swim across the English Channel and till now is one of the fastest swimmers to cross the English Channel.
Young Woman and the Sea is made by Walt Disney Pictures, first released on May 16, 2024, in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel followed by its theatrical release in the United States on May 31, 2024. The movie is now also available to watch at Disney+ starting from July 19, 2024. Joachim Ronning directs the movie, which is inspired by a book by Glenn Stout of the same name.
As far as the accuracy of the movie is concerned, Young Woman and the Sea might not be 100% accurate but is also not starkly different from reality. The events shown in the movie are true, but the makers have added some fictional storylines to make it more resonating and appealing to the audience.
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The official synopsis of the movie reads,
“This is the extraordinary true story of the first woman to successfully swim the English Channel.”
Young Woman and the Sea: The real v/s reel of Trudy Ederle’s story
Trudy Ederle was the reason the variety of competitions were brought in for women in the Olympics in 1928. Ederle made the record for swimming in the English Channel on August 6, 1926, and beat the record time of the male opponent by two hours. She became the first woman in history to do so.
“She held virtually every world record you could hold for women’s freestyle swimming,” said Glenn Stout, the writer of the book to Time Magazine.
Young Woman and the Sea shows Ederle recovering from an illness that nearly took her life and when she wanted to learn to swim, no training centers or pool places let her enter the water with the fear that she might still be contagious.
The film then showed Ederle playing ukulele and singing all day until her father agreed to take her to the Atlantic Ocean and taught her to swim with a rope tied to her. Stout appreciated the depiction of Ederle’s zeal in the movie but also mentioned that it wasn’t something that happened.
Charlotte Epstein, the founder of the Women’s Swimming Association, coached Ederle. She earned several accolades and awards in beginning-level competitions, ultimately leading her way to a gold medal in relay and two bronze medals in the 1924 Paris Olympics.
Young Woman and the Sea shows Ederle swimming 16 miles from Lower Manhattan to Sandy Hook, which, according to Stout, is true, but the way she got the sponsorship to swim the English Channel, was not as shown in the movie.
Young Woman and the Sea showed Ederle purposely swimming and coming out of the water in front of the sponsor and her mother, after which she joined them for dinner. Although it showed the willingness of Ederle to go to any extent to swim the Channel, but in reality, it was a matter of luck.
Women’s Swimming Association sponsored another swimmer, Helen Wainwright, to swim the English Channel, but the swimmer got injured and that’s how Ederle finally got her chance.
In her first attempt, Ederle couldn’t complete her swim because she fell ill. She believed it was her coach, Jabez Wolffe, who poisoned her on purpose. After she was rescued from mid-water, Young Woman and the Sea showed that she met with her father and sister and left back to France for a second try.
But in reality, Ederle waited for a year and got herself a new coach Bill Burgess who helped her to complete her swim in 14 hours and 31 minutes. In 1933, she got a back injury and had to quit her swimming career, but she continued her journey as a coach and used to train deaf students as she lost her ability to hear over time because of a childhood disease, Measles.
Gertrude Caroline Ederle never got married and lived in a nursing home in 2001. She died at 98, on November 30, 2003, and was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City.
Young Woman and the Sea is available to watch on Disney+
