Swell

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Justin Lee directs. Adrian M. Pruett behind the camera. Michael Tang cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

• 1Released 7 years ago.
• 2Lean credit list — fewer than 30 people officially credited.
• 3Directed by Justin Lee, shot by Adrian M. Pruett. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
• 4Editor Michael Tang shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
• 5Summer Spiro and Corbin Bernsen and Gabrielle Stone carry the top of the cast.
• 6IMDB entry: tt5667650 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
• 7Only 8 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.

The technical file

Cinematography

Adrian M. Pruett

Editing

Michael Tang

Runtime

97 min · 1h 37m

Status

Released

Original language

EN

IMDB

Swell (2019) ↗

Also by

Justin Lee

• 
  A Reckoning

  2018 · ★ 6.8
• 
  Badland

  2019 · ★ 6.4
• 
  Apache Junction

  2021 · ★ 6.3
• 
  Hunters

  2021 · ★ 6.2
• 
  Humbug

  2016 · ★ 6.0
• 
  Big Legend

  2018 · ★ 6.0

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

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  Trailer

  Trailer

Community reviews

What people are saying

• Wuchak2026-05-06
  ★ 7/10

  Poignant coastal trip from Santa Cruz to Astoria, Oregon While the movie poster suggests this is a surfing film, it’s actually a road movie, although there are a couple of short surfing sequences. It comes in the tradition of Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Rain People” from fifty years earlier, just involving route 101 and the coast of the Great Northwest. It’s similar to “Big Sur” (2013) minus the funereal tone, as well as “The Lucky Ones” (2008), “The Way” (2010) and “A Walk in the Woods” (2015). While it’s not nigh-great like “The Lucky Ones” it’s at least on par with the best of the other three. The writer/director, Justin Lee, likes to include iconic actors in peripheral roles. Here it’s Corbin Bernsen and Adrienne Barbeau. Yet the story focuses on two best friends (Summer Spiro and Gabrielle Stone) and the two people they more-or-less team-up with on their journey (Brennan Murray and Kuali'i Wittman). Some criticize it as schmaltzy, but it’s no more so than any of the films listed above. Remember, filmmakers usually have to condense days into a relatively short span of time, around 90-120 minutes. As such, the emotional high points and low points are emphasized for entertainment purposes. It was shot along the coast of northern California to southern Washington, including Klamath and Crescent City, California; Port Orford, Prehistoric Gardens and Astoria, Oregon; and Cape Disappointment State Park, Washington. A couple of these locations are out of place in the movie; what I mean is Prehistoric Gardens is south of Port Orford, not north. Moreover, the group never makes it to the state of Washington, which is where Cape Disappointment is located, just across the mouth of the Columbia River. Obviously we’re to assume that that particular location is in Oregon. Released in 2019, it runs 1h 35m. GRADE: B

  Read full review ↓

Key crew

• ProducerJustin Lee
• EditorMichael Tang
• ProducerKevin Makely
• MusicJared Forman

Release history · US

When it landed

• Digital2019-03-26