Swept Away (2002)

Guy Ritchie came onto the film scene in a big, memorable way. He released two movies right out the gate that have become cult favourites, if not bordering on mainstream favourites. Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels was his first feature film. It was a local London crime drama that introduced his signature style to audiences, as well as cast members like Vinnie Jones and Jason Statham. He followed it up two years later with Snatch, which was another crime drama with comedic elements. The difference was the bigger budget, allowing for a bigger cast that included Brad Pitt, Benicio Del Toro, and Dennis Farina. Ritchie was on a roll.

Sometime during that early success, Guy Ritchie met Madonna. Their meeting was set up by Sting’s wife, Trudie Styler, at a dinner party. They had a child in 2000 before getting married at the end of the year. They went on to make a music video and a short video in 2001, cementing their working relationship alongside their romantic one. This working relationship would further be solidified in 2002 when Guy Ritchie released his third film.

Swept Away was a remake of a 1974 Italian film by Lina Wertmüller, A bunch of rich Americans went on vacation on a small cruise ship. Among them was Amber Leighton (Madonna), a woman who treated everyone else as being beneath her because they didn’t have her wealth. Giuseppe Esposito (Adriano Giannini) was one of the workers on the boat who was being treated like crap. This would come to a head when Amber demanded that Giuseppe take her out on a small boat to find some caves. The boat broke down, a storm came, and they got stranded on a deserted island. They had been… swept away.

Even though Swept Away solidified that working relationship between husband and wife, people didn’t gravitate to it. The movie didn’t cost too much to make. It had a ten-million-dollar budget. There was a hot director, fresh off the one-two punch of British gangster movies that kickstarted his big screen career. Madonna was still Madonna, one of the most popular pop stars of all time. Yet, even with those two elements together, it couldn’t make back the budget. The film collected a total of just over one million dollars at the box office. It became one of the definitive box office bombs of the early 00s.

There are many reasons for this lack of box office earnings. The first was that it wasn’t a wide release film. It was released on only 196 screens in North America, meaning it never really had a chance to make a big profit. Though, had it done well in those 196 screens, it surely would have been expanded allowing more people to find and watch it. The other big reason was word of mouth. Critically, the film was panned. Few people liked it. And they each had reasons for it being bad. It’s time to look at some of those reasons.

Most of the criticism of Swept Away was directed at Madonna’s performance, which was an issue. A better actress could have given a more nuanced performance as Amber. But Madonna wasn’t the whole problem with that character. The issue, as Roger Ebert put it in his review, was that Amber was such a despicable, hateful character that it was next to impossible for people to care when she turned around and became sympathetic. Sure, Madonna wasn’t good enough to play both sides of the character in a satisfying performance, but the degree of horrible that Amber was in the first half ended up being the real problem. The critics who wrote off Madonna’s whole acting career were being unfair. She has had good performances in movies like A League of Their Own and did an okay job here. She just wasn’t right for this role.

Going back to Roger Ebert (this is more than I’ve ever written about the man), he mentioned that Swept Away was missing the emotional resonance of the main characters. That is very much a true statement. The two characters were opposite political sides of the same irritating character in the beginning of the film. One was the rich woman who felt that everyone else was below her. The other was the working man who wanted to be seen as an equal to everyone else. They butted heads for the entire first half of the movie before, all of a sudden, falling in love through a series of montages. Without time spent building the relationship, everything felt hollow. The time wasn’t spent to let the characters grow into their adoration. The romance was built in the matter of a montage, thus removing the emotional resonance needed to pull off the important parts of the film. Particularly, the final scene.

Madonna fired back with her own criticism of the critics. She claimed that critics were being harsh on Swept Away because Guy Ritchie had found tremendous success with his first two films. That was a fair assessment. There have been times that critics and fans alike turned on someone because they had become so popular so fast. People feel the need to break people down as quickly as they were built up. There’s no real reasoning behind it. It just seems to be a part of human nature. The problem was that Madonna’s criticism only worked for the people who hadn’t yet seen the film. To be fair, that was a lot of people, since it did so poorly at the box office. But the critics who did see it gave reasons for it being bad. Namely, her performance and the lack of emotional resonance were to blame. Madonna’s claims were only justified for the people who hadn’t seen Swept Away, not those who had.

Swept Away went on to receive many awards for how bad it was and earn its spot as the low point of Guy Ritchie’s career. He would make multiple comebacks and multiple forays back into the British gangster genre to distance himself from the notoriety of his lowest point. For the most part, it worked. None of his movies gained the same poor reputation. Nothing came close to the time he remade an Italian classic with his wife that failed in every way possible. It wasn’t the only bad spot in his career, but it was the only truly terrible film he made. Even his next film, the unloved Revolver, fared better than Swept Away. At least that one was forgotten. Swept Away will always be remembered.

Guy Ritchie and Madonna separated in 2008. Their marriage was over, as was their working relationship. Their legacy of screen work was one music video, one short film, and one feature film. With the end of their marriage came one of the largest divorce settlements to ever occur. They shared custody of their children and went their separate ways. Guy Ritchie went on to make some more successful British gangster movies, as well as a string of big studio movies. Madonna went back to music and also directed a couple movies. What was once a collaborative effort between a married couple became two separate careers for two separate lives.

Guy Ritchie has made many movies that people know. He began his career with Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and followed that up with Snatch. He dipped his toes back in the British gangster genre for RocknRolla and The Gentlemen. He also directed a couple Sherlock Holmes movies, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a King Arthur flick, and the live action Disney reboot of Aladdin. As much as those movies have found audiences, fans, and adoration, people will always remember his misstep. Not Revolver, though that didn’t do too much better than the big misstep. They’ll always remember the time when he worked with his wife to film the 2002 remake of Swept Away. That will always be a part of his legacy, that low moment that he’ll never be able to shake.

You could shake these notes, but you could also check them out:

• Swept Away featured Elizabeth Banks, who could previously be seen in Movie 43 (week 243) and Fred Claus (week 265).
• Madonna was the only other returning Sunday “Bad” Movies actor, showing up in both Die Another Day (week 153) and Swept Away.
• Have you seen Swept Away? Was it as bad as people said? Let me know all about what you think of it in the comments or on Twitter.
• You can also let be know on Twitter or in the comments what movies you think I should be checking out for future Sunday “Bad” Movies installments. Hit me up. Tell me what to watch. Go ahead.
• Maybe you should give a look to the Instagram account for Sunday “Bad” Movies as well. There’s stuff going up there almost daily.
• Next week, I will be back with another post about another “bad” movie. Which one will it be? I’ll be tapping that well of video game movies that seems to always produce bad movie after bad movie. This one is from the end of the 1990s. It’s called Wing Commander. If you want to see what I write about it, head back to the Sunday “Bad” Movies next Sunday and you’ll see what I had to say. I’ll see you then, hopefully.