‘Swiped’: Successful app and a date with harsh reality

‘Swiped’ isn’t a rom-com disguised as real life, it is a biopic with a dash of sass, a bite of satire and a whole lot of tech industry chaos. And it is also not simply about apps on your phone, it is about the women who dared to carve out space in an industry that seemed determined to keep them out.

Lily James steps into the role of Whitney Wolfe Herd, the co-founder of Tinder and creator of Bumble. The movie opens with Whitney, a trailblazing recent graduate, stepping into Los Angeles’ male-dominated tech scene and landing at Hatch Labs, where she quickly proves herself indispensable. She shapes Tinder’s early branding, masterminds its clever campus marketing campaigns and even coins the app’s now-iconic name.

As Tinder rockets to popularity, Whitney’s relationship with co-founder Justin Mateen (Jackson White) spirals from romance into toxicity. Harassment and exclusion follow, leaving her pushed out of the very company she helped build. Shaken but determined, she files a sexual harassment lawsuit, only to find herself engulfed in a media storm where leaked details and relentless scrutiny amplify her ordeal.

Bound by a strict non-disclosure agreement and on the brink of walking away from tech altogether, Whitney’s story could have ended there.

But then, Andrey Andreev (Dan Stevens), the eccentric CEO of Badoo, offers her a daring new path. Rallying her resilience, she launches Bumble, an app that flips the script by giving women the power to make the first move. Out of betrayal and burnout emerges a bold new vision, with Whitney determined to reclaim her voice in tech and reshape the rules of online dating on her own terms.

What keeps ‘Swiped’ buoyant is its refusal to sink fully into despair. The drama is heavy at times, but the film is laced with wit and energy.

Director Rachel Lee Goldenberg has given the film a quick, spirited tempo right from the start. There is no slow burn here. Instead, we are dropped into the heady world of mixers, brainstorms and venture-capital chatter, where everyone is a visionary in their own mind.

James plays Whitney with a restless spark. And if there is anyone who can be simultaneously fierce, flustered and funny, it is her. Watching her take up space in boardrooms full of smirks and scepticism feels like the film’s strongest current.

Industry-fame Myha’la as Tisha, Whitney’s sharp-tongued confidante, steals scenes with dry humour and a knack for pulling Whitney back into reality.

The narrative arc appears familiar. Rise, fall, reinvention. We have seen versions of it in ‘The Social Network’ and ‘Steve Jobs’, but ‘Swiped’ makes the formula feel fresh by anchoring it in gendered power dynamics. When Whitney launches Bumble, the film lets out a breath it’s been holding. Suddenly, she’s not just building an app, she is rewriting the rules of who gets to make the first move — on screen and in her own life.

One flaw is that the film occasionally trips on its tone. The leap from glossy startup acts to scenes of harassment can feel jarring like switching playlists mid-song. Still, it is hard not to be swept away by the momentum. James ensures that Whitney never feels like a slogan in human form. She is vulnerable, stubborn, and, above all, believable.

By the final frame, ‘Swiped’ doesn’t pretend to be the ultimate word on the rise of Bumble. Instead, it leaves you with an impression about the energy of a woman who refuses to be silenced and the absurdity of tech culture in full sprint. It is also a quiet reminder that behind every app notification is a human being trying to be heard.

‘Swiped’ is lively and a little stylised, but it works.