SWIPED (TIFF 2025) – Review by Rachel West
Whitney Wolfe appeared to have it all. A smart, business-savvy young woman full of ideas who knew how to work a room full of tech bros to earn herself a place as Tinder’s lone female co-founder. It seems like a tech fairytale come true, full of female empowerment and triumph. But for Wolfe, it was more akin to a nightmare full of misogyny, toxic men, harassment, and sexism. Her story is the basis for the new film Swiped, directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg and starring Lily James as the real-life Wolfe.
Premiering at TIFF ahead of its debut on Hulu and Disney+, Swiped’s story is an entertaining if by-the-numbers biopic of Wolfe. The film opens with Whitney Wolfe (James) as a bright-eyed college graduate with dreams of helping the world through an app. She gets her foot in the door when she meets Sean (Ben Schnetzer), the co-founder of a rising startup incubator that’s working on everything from a restaurant loyalty app to a first-of-its-kind dating app.
Set in the early 2010s, Whitney seems to have landed her dream job. Full of ideas for the new dating app, including dubbing it Tinder, Wolfe sees herself rising the ranks of the male-heavy tech world. Her personal life is soaring alongside her professional one as she begins dating another Tinder co-founder, Justin (Jackson White).
Goldenberg’s film effectively captures the early 2000s vibe of the tech sphere, complete with a modern office, ping pong tables, and even a slide. Developers party as hard as they work, turning Tinder into a worldwide success amongst single Millennials. But Whitney’s good times come crashing down when her romance with Justin sours. Showing his true colours as a vindictive ex, and her attempts to establish professional boundaries at work quickly go up in flames.
It is here that the script by Goldenberg, Bill Parker, and Kim Carmele really digs into not just Wolfe’s story, but the toxic workplace culture that many women will sadly recognize. Misogyny is on full display against not just Whitney but the few female colleagues at Tinder who are repeatedly talked over and down to, and women’s physical appearances are critiqued by the male desk jockeys. Not only do women not have a seat at the table, they’re barely in the room.
As Justin effectively pushes Whitney out of the company through gross and threatening behaviour, it sends her into a spiral of anxiety. This part of the story is where Swiped feels most successful. The abuse Whitney suffered isn’t exclusive to her story, but one felt across many industries in the pre-#MeToo era. Women are constantly caught in a cycle of workplace toxicity, laughing along to sexist jokes to show they’re “just one of the guys”. To see Whitney stand up for herself on screen and still be bullied and beaten down is a stark reminder of why women aren’t always able to speak up in these environments.
Swiped’s story peters out a bit as it chronicles Whitney’s rise out of the Tinder ashes. While the major focus of the film is on the creation of Tinder, her next chapter paves the way for better and better things. You see, Wolfe would go on to become the youngest female self-made billionaire thanks to her next brilliant idea: Bumble.
Bumble, the dating app in which women make the first move in messaging men, is an easy one for the audience to cheer for after seeing what went on behind the scenes at Tinder. Feeling a bit rushed as things come together to develop the app, Swiped loses a bit of steam and starts relying on a few too many cliches. As Whitney tries to stick to her morals, she’s faced with yet another challenge when her supporter and app backer Andrey Andreev (Dan Stevens) gets called out for toxic behaviour.
James is great as Whitney Wolfe. She’s believable and engaging as the app founder, making the character genuinely likable. As her spurned lover, Justin, White is phenomenal, alternating between romantic and scary. His role here captures what it is like to be in a toxic relationship, gaslit and harassed to the point of mental distress. Stevens, too, is quite charming as the Russian investor Andreev. Nearly unrecognizable, he adds warmth and humour to the film with Andreev, which further complicates Whitney’s relationship with him. While Whitney feels like a full-fledged character, the men are slightly less so, though not to the point of caricature. The script effectively conveys that these guys are contradictory and complicated, and that, as Whitney comes to terms with, just because one doesn’t personally witness bad behaviour, it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
Swiped may not have anything revolutionary to say, but it’s an effective and entertaining watch thanks to James’ performance. It’s easy to cheer Whitney’s journey on with viewers rallying behind her success.
