Swiped
Perhaps following on from the success of Blackberry, biographical drama Swiped explores the birth of easy-access dating apps, and the ensuing wealth of its founder and CEO, Whitney Wolfe Herd. Lily James plays Herd, who became the world’s youngest female billionaire in 2021.
Herd is a likeable lead, pitching her dating app concepts to various tech bros with little success. After helping come up with the name “Tinder”, she reaches an unimaginable level of success, only for her achievements to be overshadowed by her male colleagues. This ultimately leads to her founding her very own dating app, Bumble, with the help of the eccentric Andrey Andreev (Dan Stevens).
James does a stellar job, perfecting Herd’s accent and imbuing the role with youthful entrepreneurial vigour. She’s also adept at depicting the emotional toll that boardroom culture has on Herd’s mental health. Director Rachel Lee Goldenberg uses rapid-fire edits to convey Herd’s deteriorating psychological state, to distressing effect. In a brief cameo, Dermot Mulroney also gives a sympathetic performance as a more encouraging figure in Herd’s pursuit to find her feet in the cutthroat world of Silicon Valley.
The film explores the misogyny of the tech industry, which leads to Herd herself becoming complicit in her own subjugation. When her female colleagues bring up the issue of men on Tinder sending women unsolicited photos of their genitals, she initially brushes it aside out of fear of losing her job. It’s in these moments that Swiped excels.
But Herd’s billionaire achievement is ultimately at the heart of the movie, which only fleetingly attempts to sugarcoat its exaltation of girlboss capitalism. There’s little critique of the culture that capitalises on both the loneliness epidemic and users’ pervasive need for instant gratification.
In an age of screen addiction, the feature would have benefited from exploring the atomisation of these apps’ vulnerable user bases in more depth. Though a well-meaning look at a young woman’s venture into an androcentric world, one can’t help but feel that Swiped is a missed opportunity for something more thought-provoking.
Antonia Georgiou
Swiped is released on Disney+ on 19th September 2025.
Watch the trailer for Swiped here:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
RSS