THE STORY – It is 2012. The tech industry remains a boy’s club. But 22-year-old Whitney refuses to observe Silicon Valley’s glass ceiling. In the wake of a failed startup, Whitney joins the development team at MatchBox, a company she would rebrand as Tinder. As vice president of marketing, she cracks Tinder’s college campus market and sees its user base explode. Whitney is on top of the world — until tensions between her and her male counterparts burgeon, and she finds herself subject to sexual harassment. It’s a devastating blow, but Whitney powers through, leaving that toxic workspace, filing a lawsuit, winning a settlement, moving to Texas, and going on to develop a new dating app that empowers women. In 2014, Bumble is born. And behind the scenes, Whitney finds a surprising match all her own.
THE CAST – Lily James, Jackson White, Myha’la, Ben Schnetzer, Dan Stevens, Pierson Fodé, Clea Duvall, Pedro Correa, Ian Colletti, Coral Peña & Mary Neely
THE TEAM – Rachel Lee Goldenberg (Director/Writer), Bill Parker & Kim Caramele (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 110 Minutes
It’s silly to say, but it’s almost hard to think back to a time when dating apps weren’t a thing and people met partners organically. It’s been more than 10 years since Tinder and Bumble launched, and they entirely changed the dating game for people of all ages all over the world. But like a prospective partner, the story of how those revolutionary platforms started comes with some baggage as seen in Rachel Lee Goldenberg’s “Swiped,” which highlights CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd’s rise, fall, and rise again in the industry. Sadly, this film is not the next “The Social Network,” but is as basic as a straight-to-streaming biopic can get. It fails as a character study, as Wolfe Herd was not involved in its creation due to an NDA agreement, and doesn’t expand upon several relevant topics in the film.
Just a year out of college, Whitney (Lily James) is ready to make the next big startup, hoping to connect volunteers to orphanages around the world. Sadly, the tech bros around her are only interested in the next Facebook or Twitter, or getting her number. But a chance meeting with Sean Rad (Ben Schnetzer), the head of a startup company, leads to an even bigger break than she could have expected. Soon, she’s hired to be the marketing director for a new dating app called Tinder (which she named), and after she goes from university to university pitching the platform to college students, it becomes a hit.
The further this film goes on, however, Goldenberg’s direction starts to let this story down. As Whitney starts a relationship with one of her colleagues, Justin (Jackson White) – funnily enough, without the aid of their app – the director decides to put their big “falling in love” moment in the middle of a chaotic family gathering where so much is happening and their conversation keeps getting interrupted. Sparks fly from that moment on, but soon Justin’s jealousy starts to take hold when Whitney becomes a co-founder of the app. It’s not entirely clear why he becomes so harsh toward her – he’s already her boss and a co-founder – but after they break up, he threatens to fire her and harasses her with an onslaught of nasty text messages. One area where this film does excel is in showing the boys culture at tech companies and how much they fail women. She’s one of few women working at this company, and whenever she tries to bring up concerns about safety on the app, her ideas are disregarded or the men just talk over her. Once she and Justin break up, the environment becomes even more toxic as she’s excluded from meetings and ultimately forced out.
James is another highlight in this film, elevating a basic script and giving us someone to root for every step of the way. In particular, seeing Whitney at her lowest points, when she’s harassed by people online, gives her room to flex her acting muscles. But there’s only so much she can do when she’s given very little inspiring material. Because Wolfe Herd could not participate in the creation of this film, we’re given little insight into her actual life that’s not work-related. We don’t know anything about her family (other than meeting her future husband at a bar), who her friends are outside of the office, or what she likes to do when she’s not working (aside from the orphanage work mentioned at the start of the film, which is quickly forgotten). The film also isn’t interested in doing a deep dive into her own shortcomings, such as not championing women to climb up the ladder at Tinder (like her friend played by Myha’la, who is so underutilized). Her reckoning comes toward the end of the film, but one scene is not nearly enough time to spend on something as interesting as this.
As the film heads into its third act, we get to see the early days of Bumble and how Whitney’s career starts to rise again. The difference between this workplace environment and Tinder’s is night and day, as Bumble is made up almost entirely of women who support each other and encourage ideas. Dan Stevens as the CEO of a European dating app that’s funding the company is a well-needed addition to the film. He’s almost unrecognizable with a dark hairstyle and thick accent, and he delivers a solid performance even if he doesn’t have a whole lot to do. When yet another scandal breaks out – this one regarding sexual assault allegations – the film stumbles again to get into this topic for more than two scenes. “Swiped” would have made more sense as a miniseries, such as “The Dropout” or “WeCrashed,” so that issues and characters could have been given the time needed to develop. There’s so much depth missing from this story that it doesn’t do Wolfe Herd any justice.
Overall, “Swiped” misses quite a few marks in telling this hero story. Though James does her best with what she’s given, this movie doesn’t provide a full and rich look at Wolfe Herd’s life, who is certainly a lot more than just her career achievements (they are immensely impressive, but shouldn’t define her). Goldenberg’s questionable direction and a hasty screenplay also don’t do justice to vital topics covered in this film. It’s a decent attempt at a biopic, but Wolfe Herd deserves better.
