The British indie film scene has always had an eye for generational talent. From Oscar-winner Chiwetel Ejiofor, who got acclaim in Stephen Frears’ indie DIRTY PRETTY THINGS, to Hollywood starlet Emily Blunt in Paweł Pawlikowski’s MY SUMMER OF LOVE, there is a recurrence of British indie films finding gems. In Sasha Nathwani’s sun-soaked tale of melancholic adolescent angst, LAST SWIM, the gem in question is Deba Hekmat.
In contemporary London, British-Iranian teenager Ziba (Deba Hekmat) and her friends await their A-Level results. For Ziba, they contain the key to her future, while her friends are less interested, with their aspirations set low. Ziba’s aspirations are higher in astrophysics and a place at the prestigious University College London, even if the white interviewer wants to trip her up on her interview with his microaggressions. But that future feels just out of reach to Ziba, who keeps a secret. Diagnosed with a potentially terminal illness, Ziba, who has kept this from her tight-knit group of friends, meticulously plans an itinerary of her favourite Persian sandwich, falafel, alcohol and having one last day of unrestrained freedom. Her day will culminate in a once-in-a-lifetime asteroid shower that will provide enough catharsis for Ziba to end her own life and what she perceives as world-shattering suffering.
“The pack of friends have a sizzling camaraderie that makes the casting feel like lightning in a bottle. […] However, Malcolm’s status as an outsider gives Ziba the breathing room necessary to explore her feelings properly.”
Her itinerary quickly loses structure. Even the greatest of plans in adulthood still find themselves scuppered by the simplest tribulations, with the introduction of football-playing Malcolm (Denzel Baidoo), who swoops into the film with irresistible charisma and bashfulness that hides his own secrets. His subplot reinforces Ziba’s journey, where his struggle with the parental expectation of fulfilling his talent is a concentrated version of Ziba’s interactions with her mother. Their blossoming relationship is crucial in the writing from Nathwani, alongside co-writer and producer Helen Simmons, as the sincerity of Malcolm thaws Ziba’s frozen outlook on her future. The pack of friends have a sizzling camaraderie that makes the casting feel like lightning in a bottle. Tara (Lydia Fleming), affable Shea (Solly McLeod), and zesty Murph (Jay Lycurgo) are able to infer Ziba’s troubles and attempt to begin conversations about her mental and physical health. However, Malcolm’s status as an outsider gives Ziba the breathing room necessary to explore her feelings properly.
In LAST SWIM, Ziba’s story takes on the nature of the asteroid shower she desperately wishes to experience: a trail of debris in the vacuum of space. Her obsession with space serves her feeling of insignificance; the grand scope of Earth is used as a framing device that looms over her like a giant, impenetrable marble that could spin off its axis at any moment. That Ziba wants to leave little debris is a consequence of her mental strength. The suicidal ideation she has is resolute, and that strength comes from a place of living a more academically structured lifestyle based on her mum’s influence. Her plans are laid out to the minute, but the film is structured around that free-wheeling sense of teenage liberation where nothing goes as planned. The posse of teenagers finds themselves cartwheeling around a gloriously sunny London that only serves as a kind of inverse pathetic fallacy in a film that feels both tragic and life-affirming.
“LAST SWIM is an emotionally viscous film with Hekmat, with her glistening tear-soaked cheeks and penetrating eyes that can permeate the soul with the briefest of glances, standing out amongst the fizzy young cast as a future star.”
Hekmat, with her striking features and piercing eyes, is the soul of the film, her breakdowns resonant and her outbursts palpable. From the weirdly intimate joy she experiences being on a sweaty car ride with her best friends to the facade dropping when alone in a bathroom, her mortality staring back at her, the film is an emotional showcase for Hekmat to prove her ability in this bittersweet anti-coming-of-age film. Hekmat should find herself with the world at her feet after this dazzling performance of disconsolate ebullience.
LAST SWIM swirls with a sense of unrestrained and unflinching beauty, and the joy and heartbreak of being a teenager, deftly and assuredly captured by Nathwani as the film finds pathos in that finite, liminal space in adolescence where you don’t know if the life you’ve lived was worth anything, the burden of expectation placed upon the youth by parental figures and in those fleeting connections made within your teenage years. LAST SWIM is an emotionally viscous film with Hekmat, with her glistening tear-soaked cheeks and penetrating eyes that can reach the soul with the briefest of glances, standing out amongst the fizzy young cast as a future star.