Swimfan

Swimfan
Film poster
Directed by	John Polson
Written by	Charles F. Bohl Phillip Schneider
Produced by	Joseph M. Caracciolo Jr. John Penotti
Starring	Jesse Bradford Erika Christensen Shiri Appleby Clayne Crawford Jason Ritter Dan Hedaya
Cinematography	Giles Nuttgens
Edited by	Sarah Flack
Music by	John Debney
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	September 6 2002
Running time	85 min.
Budget	$10,000,000

Swimfan is a 2002 psychological thriller film directed by John Polson and written by Charles F. Bohl and Phillip Schneider. Considered a Fatal Attraction for a teenage audience, the film stars contemporary youth icons Jesse Bradford, Erika Christensen and Shiri Appleby.

Taglines

• Seduction. Betrayal. Murder. Speedos. Some girls have all the fun
• His biggest fan just became his worst nightmare
• Ben Cronin had the perfect life until he met the new girl

Plot

Benjamin "Ben" Cronin (Jesse Bradford) is a high-school swimmer who once had a "drug problem" (not specified in the film). An aspiring Olympian, Ben is training to impress a visiting athletic scout from Stanford University. Ben is dating a girl named Amy Miller (Shiri Appleby) and works with his mother at the local hospital. After a girl named Madison Bell (Erika Christensen) transfers to his school, he is seduced by her in a one night stand in a pool by having sexual intercourse. Ben, after reflection, finally rejects her in favor of his girlfriend. Madison becomes obsessed with Ben and turns his life into a living hell as the possessive Madison keeps stalking him. She manages to become friendly with Amy, and Ben's mother. After Ben conclusively tells her that he wants nothing to do with her because he is with Amy, the "horror" truly begins as she has a violent Borderline Personality Disorder and will never let him go - even in the face of death.

Reception

The film wasn't very well received by either critics or audiences. Much of the negative responses focused on the 'poor characterisation' of the teenage protagonist's, who were seen as just more in a long line of youth stereotypes, played by actor's far too old for their roles (Bradford was in his mid-twenties).

Trivia

• Unlike "Madison," who cannot swim, actress Erika Christensen is a superb swimmer in real life. She scored the most points at her school swimming carnival when she was only 7.

• The winning time in the 200 yard freestyle event depicted in the film would have set a world record.

• Swimfan was filmed in an actual high school, Bayonne High School, located in Bayonne, New Jersey.

• In a promotion with AOL, AOL Instant Messenger users could talk with "swimfan4u" (actually a computer-generated phrase messenger), who would ask about the movie characters.

• The film's title and scene in some trailers was SwimFan85, but the 85 was later dropped.

External links

• Twentieth Century - Swimfan
• Swimfan at IMDb
• Swimfan at Rotten Tomatoes
• Swimfan at Box Office Mojo