I'm pretty surprised to see a lot of the first reviews for this to be so mixed. While The Swimmers could've been a little stronger overall, I still found this to be an inspirational, heartfelt and emotional true story that I knew little about beforehand. This is a feel-good movie at its core but I'm glad Sally El Hosaini didn't shy away from the darker and more intense moments of the story even if it does make the tone feel a little jumbled at times. It does run a little long and feels a bit uneven as each act feels like its own film, but it's held together by the spirited performances from real life sisters Nathalie and Manal Issa…

Here in Montreal, I have several Syrian friends and acquaintances, many of whom were the “lucky ones” with money and connections, who were able to exit the country in 2011 or 2012 prior to the most serious devastation; I was actually dating a Syrian-Canadian at the time when the conflict broke out and I remember his family scrambling to sponsor and gather their relatives. I also have had a few students whose family is still in Lebanese camps but they pooled all their money to send their children to Canada or the US on a study visa, while they wait. I have friends who have worked at the Lebanese, Greek and German refugee camps, as well as other European friends…

Given the nature of the true story that this was based on, there's a part of me feeling like this had a chance at being a lot more visceral. When you're considering the scope of this story, covering how the Mardini sisters had escaped from Syria and lived in refuge before Yusra would become the Olympic swimmer whom we know her as now, all of this feels very conventional - and not in a way that I find very compelling at that. But this also hurts the final film in a way, because it's trying to show two different stories being told at once: one being about the escape into refuge, and the other a supposedly inspirational tale about an…