Stream It Or Skip It?

The concept of swiping left or right to convey disapproval or approval has become universally understood thanks to Tinder. The new Hulu original film Swiped, which is based on a true story, takes a look at that company’s evolution through the eyes of its only female co-founder, Whitney Wolfe (played by Lily James) who endured years of harassment during her time there. In an effort to change dating culture, Whitney went on to found Bumble, but despite her efforts to make the internet a safe space for women, her journey – and ultimately, her success – was an uphill battle.

SWIPED: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: After a notice explaining “This film is inspired by actual events” appears onscreen, we see a young woman named Whitney Wolfe (Lily James) confidently walking into an event filled with startup bros, tech disruptors and venture capitalist types that she hopes will invest in an app she’s developing.

The Gist: It’s 2012, and Whitney is trying to get a new app off the ground that will connect orphanages with… umm, I think maybe people who want to help orphanages? It’s unclear, because every time she starts to explain what it is, she’s interrupted by some tech dude who stops her right there and tells her they aren’t interested. But when she meets Sean Rad (Ben Schnetzer), who runs a startup incubator called Hatch Labs, he sees a spark in her. Maybe not in the orphanage app, but he can see that she has promise, so Rad hires her to work for him as his marketing director.

Early in Whitney’s tenure at Hatch Labs, she helps found Tinder, which grows from a grassroots app that she markets to college students and within two years, it becomes part of the cultural lexicon. Thousands of people are swiping left and right, but pretty soon, users are being inundated with dick pics and the darker side of the app is something Whitney is unable to address on her own. At the same time, Whitney has started a relationship with one of Tinder’s other founders, Justin Mateen (Jackson White in a role that’s not too far off from Stephen, the creep he plays in Tell Me Lies), who is initially sweet and charming, before turning into a controlling, jealous gaslighter who makes her life hell. Tinder has become a hotbed for harassment and abuse, both on the app itself in inside the workplace, and any time Whitney attempts to report users’ claims of harassment, or Justin’s behavior, Sean dismisses it and eventually dismisses Whitney outright, forcing her to resign.

As the company Whitney helped build thrives, she’s forced to sign an NDA as part of her separation agreement, but someone, probably Justin, leaks all of her complaints to the press and she’s painted a “crazy woman in tech,” alienating her even more from the professional space. Once she regains some clarity, she connects with Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev (Dan Stevens), the founder of the biggest dating site in the world, Badoo, who offers her the funds so she can start her own new app.

Whitney hires her former colleagues Tisha (Myha’la) and Beth (Mary Neely), intent of creating a woman-led, woman-forward app, and they come up with Bumble, an app with a no-harassment policy where only women are allowed to initiate contact. Throughout the movie, Tisha serves as Whitney’s conscience, always pushing her to acknowledge the toxicity at Tinder or address other injustices, so when it turns out that Andreev has been fostering a culture of racism and misogyny at Badoo, Tisha encourages Wolfe to call it out publicly. It blows up her relationship with Andreev, but that’s okay because he gets bought out and Whitney is installed as the CEO of Bumble and Badoo, becoming the youngest woman to take a company public, and the youngest self-made female billionaire.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? It just struck me that there’s no official name for the genre of movie about the early days of big businesses. Startup Cinema? Can we make that stick? I’m talking movies like The Social Network, Tetris, BlackBerry, Flamin’ Hot… they’ve all laid the groundwork for Swiped, telling the story of the difficult journey to success, but Swiped is going for a more feminist approach, looking at the hardships of business through a young woman’s eye.

Our Take: Swiped begins in 2012 and chronicles one woman’s experience with sexism and harassment in the workplace that leads her to create her own business model that’s woman-friendly just a few years later. What’s fascinating, in hindsight, is the fact that in the time between when Tinder and Bumble were created, the #MeToo movement began and the world finally took notice of the pervasive abuse and harassment women suffer on a daily basis, and the film accurately and uncomfortably acknowledges the fact that even women in positions of power are not shielded from it. That Whitney Wolfe’s experiences coincided with #MeToo and she was actively trying to make a safe space at a time when women were revealing how targeted they felt is admirable. While the film paints her in an idealistic, pro-woman light, it also acknowledges her flaws and the fact that sometimes she became a part of the sexist problem at Tinder, ultimately seeing the light and trying to do better with Bumble. As the film points out, Wolfe signed an NDA which precludes her from openly discussing her time at Tinder, so we have to imagine that what’s depicted in the movie is a rough estimate of what actually happened in real life, but many of the film’s pivotal scenes are backed up by public record.

While the actual story of Swiped is entertaining, I was confused by it’s ever-shifting tone. One minute, it’s an inspiring story of a woman who is determined to make it in tech despite the odds – and her chromosomes – being stacked against her. At other times, Whitney’s abusive relationship with Justin, and her eventual downward spiral after leaving Tinder take the film to a dark place and suck all the energy out of the movie. Jackson White is typecast here as a manipulative creep with sociopathic tendencies, and his scenes feel like they’re ripped from an episode of Tell Me Lies. And then there’s Dan Stevens, who only shows up halfway through the film as Russian tech oligarch Andrey Andreev, with an accent that gives the movie the feel of a parody. (Maybe it’s because it’s the same accent he uses in Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga?) For a film that’s otherwise fairly serious, a lot of Stevens’ scenes and delivery used for comedic effect, leading the whole thing to feel disjointed and confusing. (There’s a third actor in the film, Pierson Fodé, who’s the hunky Texan from The Wrong Paris who is also cast in essentially the same exact role he plays in that film, also as a hunky Texan that Whitney eventually marries.) I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention just how stacked – but underused – the supporting cast is: Joely Fisher, Michael Nouri, Dan Bakkedahl, Lennon Parham, Clea DuVall, and Dermot Mulroney all appear and all have about two lines of dialogue apiece.

Swiped gets in its own way because it jumps around, not sure exactly how to tell Whitney’s story, but despite that, it accurately depicts what it’s like to be a woman working in tech or pretty much any corporate environment where there’s a male-dominated power structure. Whitney is forced to sell out the women around her, against her better judgment, until she gains enough power to change the game, which she does. That’s the inspiring part, though it unfortunately still feels like a rare outcome.

Sex and Skin: There are scenes of people hooking up, and there are onscreen full-frontal dick pics shown as examples of the unsolicited messages sent via Tinder.

Parting Shot:Whitney is approached by Matthew Slate (Dermot Mulroney), from the Blackstone Investment Group, who tells her that they’ve bought out Andreev and plan to install Whitney as the new CEO. When Slate tells Whitney they have some ideas about how to proceed, she interrupts, “Matthew? How ’bout I go first?”

Performance Worth Watching: I don’t know if there’s anyone more unsettling on my TV screen these days than Jackson White. As much as I hoped that his role in this movie would be as a good guy, to try and erase his demonic behavior in Tell Me Lies from my brain, he was just as demonic here.

Memorable Dialogue: “Most of the online experience is pretty fucking shitty for women,” Whitney tells Andrey Andreev, who wants her to develop a new app for his company, and ends up making Bumble.

Our Call: Swiped has a lot of flaws in its storytelling, and yet the story itself is compelling enough to carry the film. If you love a ripped-from-the-headlines story where the good guy (er, gal) wins, STREAM IT!

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How To Watch Swiped

Swiped is available to stream exclusively on Hulu.

If you’re new to Hulu, you can get started with a 30-day free trial on the streamer’s basic (with ads) plan. After the trial period, you’ll pay $9.99/month. If you want to upgrade to Hulu ad-free, it costs $18.99/month.

If you want to stream even more and save a few bucks a month while you’re at it, we recommend subscribing to one of the Disney+ Bundles, all of which include Hulu. These bundles start at $10.99/month for ad-supported Disney+ and Hulu and goes up to $29.99/month for Disney+, Hulu, and Max, all ad-free.

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Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.