Rachel Lee Goldenberg

The drama Swiped peeks behind the scenes of the dating app Tinder, where a bright young woman who helped launch its success finds she can’t “swipe left” on the misogyny and sexism. Unfortunately, viewers might want to “swipe left” on this film. In portraying the career of Whitney Wolfe Herd, who weathered a scandal after Tinder to become the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire, the film skims over a lot. It feels like flipping through several browser windows without reading them.

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.