Although the film's title suggests an up-to-date overview of America's ever-morphing swing scene, where couples go to swap sexual partners, Matthew Kaufman's and Jon Hart's by-the-numbers documentary sticks to the rise and fall of Larry Levenson's infamous New York swingers club Plato's Retreat (1977-1985).
There's plenty of grainy black-and-white footage of sexual interaction inside the club's Manhattan locations.
Heterosexual couples — from blue collar workers to celebrities — paid $25 to freely experiment. The film combines interviews with former patrons, Levenson family members, and television interview footage with Levenson, to present a time capsule of America's shift from the free-love attitudes of the '60s and '70s to the fear-based era of AIDS.
Levenson's inevitable fall from the self-proclaimed "King of Swing" was facilitated by illegal business dealings — he didn't pay taxes and was sentenced to 36 months in prison — and by a romantic relationship that was not above jealousy. Levenson's lover's boyfriend arranged for Levenson to be beaten to a pulp.
The filmmakers needed to go another twenty-five percent deeper to bring the film full circle with today's sexual sensibilities that Levenson candidly preached, but instead settle for wrapping up the film with his lonely death at the age of 62.
Still an essential document to the rich history of New York, "American Swing" is too short sighted for the vision of its controversial subject.
(Magnolia Pictures) Not Rated. 81 mins.
