#TIFF25: “SWIPED” REVIEW

By Mr. Will Wong

Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Lily James delivers a tremendous performance in Rachel Lee Goldenberg‘s SWIPED as Whitney Wolfe, founder and CEO of online dating platform Bumble, prior to that co-founder of Tinder. And she did it all before she turned 30. This Film however, isn’t a celebration of success as much as it is a story about a woman’s battle with misogyny, betrayal, and being resilient.

We first meet Whitney in her college days where she meets Justin (Jackson White) and together they aim to re-invent dating for millennials in an app format. Justin however, is quick to take credit for some of her ideas, taking the recognition. While this all starts off as a great idea, we soon begin to see how misogyny gets reinforced with male users getting away with deplorable behaviour, and this same toxic culture is mirrored behind the scenes as well at the office. Whitney not only is forced to deal with Justin‘s constant degradation as both his partner romantically and at work, but finds herself feeling alienated and hurt until she is forced to dig deep, take a stand for herself and re-invent herself with an app that has the interest of women at heart, Bumble.

Not only is this Film acted very well, it is written smartly, credit to Goldenberg, who gets to the heart of Whitney‘s struggle, illustrating it eloquently. You’ll need Disney+ to stream this one, but it is a worthwhile watch which could well see James in-contention this awards season.

SWIPED screens at TIFF ’25 as follows:

Tuesday, September 9
Roy Thomson Hall
Premium
Closed captions (CC),
Audio description (AD)
9:30 pm

Wednesday, September 10
TIFF Lightbox
Audio description (AD),
Open captions (OC)
3:15 pm

Friday, September 12
TIFF Lightbox
Closed captions (CC),
Audio description (AD)
6:00 pm