Film Screening // Leith Kino Presents 'The Swimmer'

19.00 3hr
August 2026
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Tickets to this event are available from the link here (not via our website!) - https://ticketlab.app/event/39239-Book-Fringe-The-Swimmer-1968-tickets#

Join us in the bookshop for a programme of evening film screenings celebrating underappreciated films with literary connections, with our friends at Leith Kino.

...

Leith Kino Presents - The Swimmer (1968)

Adapting John Cheever’s 13-page short story into feature length, filmmaker Frank Perry brought The Swimmer’s vision of mid-century American suburban life with help from a screenplay written by his wife Eleanor. A hazy, sun-drenched odyssey through an affluent neighbourhood in Connecticut, The Swimmer opens with a strange introduction to its main character. Half-naked and bursting out of the woods, Burt Lancaster’s Ned Merrill gleefully exclaims that he plans on finding his way home not through walking but through swimming a path through…

Tickets to this event are available from the link here (not via our website!) - https://ticketlab.app/event/39239-Book-Fringe-The-Swimmer-1968-tickets#

Join us in the bookshop for a programme of evening film screenings celebrating underappreciated films with literary connections, with our friends at Leith Kino.

...

Leith Kino Presents - The Swimmer (1968)

Adapting John Cheever’s 13-page short story into feature length, filmmaker Frank Perry brought The Swimmer’s vision of mid-century American suburban life with help from a screenplay written by his wife Eleanor. A hazy, sun-drenched odyssey through an affluent neighbourhood in Connecticut, The Swimmer opens with a strange introduction to its main character. Half-naked and bursting out of the woods, Burt Lancaster’s Ned Merrill gleefully exclaims that he plans on finding his way home not through walking but through swimming a path through his neighbours' pools. Along his journey, Merrill’s encounters with fellow members of the upper-middle class progressively reveals what truly lies beneath the swimmer’s cheery demeanor and a dark undercurrent at the heart of this seemingly idyllic lifestyle.

Now a cult classic, Perry’s film long went underappreciated and is now considered a landmark work that features a career best performance by Burt Lancaster and a laser sharp critique of the American Dream. 

Directed by Frank Perry

Runtime: 1h 35

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