Shiny Shrimps Rating: ★★★
Have you ever found yourself crying while listening to Bonnie Tyler’s “I Need a Hero”? It’s not really a situation you’d find yourself in, but alas as the touching final scene of The Shiny Shrimps, you can’t help but tear up as the rock ballad starts booming. This underdog tale of a delinquent gay water polo team manages to tug at those heartstrings without compromising its innate campiness. When a homophobic Olympic swimmer has to clean up his image by lending a hand to helping the Shiny Shrimps reach victory at the Gay Games, hilarity and heart ensue.
When Jason Statham-esque swimmer Matthias Le Goff (Nicolas Gob) gets questioned about his not quite up-to-scratch performance by a gay journalist, he can’t help but hit back with a slur. In the vain of the creative punishments handed out by quirky judges you read about on HuffPost.com, the swimmer is sentenced to a season of coaching the self-proclaimed worst team in gay sporting history. Despite only coming together for a fun training session, the team do have their sights set on that year’s Gay Games in Croatia. The premise immediately runs the risk of a ‘straight saviour’ narrative that we often have seen play out in recent decades, though thankfully sidestepping it and adopting a more nuanced approach. Matthias is an unsympathetic character that needs the polo team as much as they need him. The team are incremental in re-connecting him with his daughter, though it takes him a little too long to learn that lesson.
The Shiny Shrimps does rely on out-dated stereotypes on more than one occasion, with the scene depicting their qualifying matching being particularly hard to watch as the team face off against a crew of violent, angry lesbians. A drag queen announcer at the Gay Games also repeatedly referrers to the audience as “Ladies, Gentlemen and Transgender” which feels a little jarring, to say the least. These internal conflicts within the queer community aren’t quite hashed out, though others are. We see a rift form between the teams older and younger members, and that not everyone is prepared to immediately accept the return of Fred as a trans woman. The team’s oldest member Joël (Roland Menou) is effective in voicing the more troublesome views harboured by many older gay men, while also serving as a reminder that it’s his generation that fought for the younger members’ freedom.
Each member of the polo team brings a queer issue to the table, from a weighed down husband wanting relief from his husband and kids to issues around identity, to a terminal illness. Not all of these issues are explored effectively, but having them as part of the conversation recognises the complicated and diverse queer experience. In the end, we’re given a microcosm of the queer world, which is initially set up in opposition to the greater, straighter world, though it’s arguably framed around the straight swimmer. Despite going on a little too long, The Shiny Shrimp will have you leaving the theatre grinning and signing up for the Gay Games 2022, Hong Kong.
The Shiny Shrimpsis out in the UK on 6th September.
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