This “sun-kissed love letter to teen angst” is “a lush, beguiling film” in the manner of vintage Terrence Malick or Sofia Coppola’s “The Virgin Suicides”, said Kevin Maher in The Times.
The plot follows a group of school leavers over the course of “a sweltering A-level results day in August”, as they breeze around London “intent on revelry”. What they don’t know is that one of them is secretly struggling with a life-threatening illness and is morbidly aware that this might be her farewell. This is Ziba (Deba Hekmat), a brilliant Iranian-British girl who had been set to study astrophysics at University College London; her “grim prognosis” injects the proceedings with “a sudden sense of urgency”.
Ziba enlists her oblivious friends for a “wild bucket-list journey” around the capital, said Rógan Graham in Little White Lies. They follow her to her favourite falafel shop, go swimming on Hampstead Heath and watch a meteor shower on Primrose Hill, as she privately vows to take the ominous “last swim” of the title.
The film is “compelling, textured and authentic”. Hekmat “puts in a charged, multifaceted performance”, said Miriam Balanescu in Empire. Similarly impressive is Denzel Baidoo as Malcolm, an older boy who invites himself to join the gang on their adventures. Director Sasha Nathwani is considerably less interested in the other characters, “who simply chauffeur Ziba through London and listen to her rhapsodise about clouds or stars without even once taking the piss”. Nevertheless, “promise abounds” in “Last Swim”: don’t be surprised if it heralds the start of “several exciting onscreen careers”.
Exam results day drama follows a group of school leavers, one of whom has a devastating secret
