Few things are as inspirational as true stories of athletic achievements and survival against the natural elements.
Audiences get both in the new biopic “Nyad,” which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in September before opening in select theaters and now streaming on Netflix in November.
Based on a true story, the film follows swimmer Diana Nyad (Annette Bening), who worked with best friend Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster) to become the first person to swim 110 miles from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida without a shark cage in 2013 at age 60, realizing a lifelong dream after failing to do it at age 28 in 1978.
It’s hard to believe Bening has never won an Oscar, despite four nominations for “The Grifters” (1990), “American Beauty” (1999), “Being Julia” (2004) and “The Kids Are All Right” (2010). She deserves another nomination for “Nyad,” but she’ll be swimming upstream against Emma Stone (“Poor Things”), Margot Robbie (“Barbie”), Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”) and Fantasia Barrino (“The Color Purple”).
Either way, “Nyad” is one of the great performances of Bening’s career, no longer caught in the whirlpool of Dupont Circle like “The American President” (1995). She now swims with the defiant energy of a 65-year-old actress proving her enduring worth just like the 60-year-old swimmer. Her character is both a lovable underdog and an abrasive figure of ambition, learning to not take her team for granted in her obsessive pursuit of a dream.
Helping her navigate those waters is Bonnie, a former lover turned lifelong friend and coach. Foster is perfect for the role, spitting encouraging zingers like Mick in “Rocky” (1976) but doing it from a boat like Quint in “Jaws” (1975). It’s awesome seeing Foster back on screen in just her fourth role in the past 10 years, having pivoted to directing films like “Money Monster” (2016) and TV like “House of Cards” (2014) and “Black Mirror” (2017).
Not that Foster has anything left to prove: she’s already won Best Actress twice for “The Accused” (1988) and “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991) with two more nods for “Taxi Driver” (1976) and “Nell” (1994). “Nyad” should bring her fifth in a Supporting Actress swimming heat of Da’Vine Joy Randolph (“The Holdovers”), Emily Blunt (“Oppenheimer”), Julianne Moore (“May December”) and Danielle Brooks or Taraji P. Henson (“The Color Purple”).
Rounding out the cast is Rhys Ifans, who played Hugh Grant’s sloppy London flatmate in the rom-com classic “Notting Hill” (1999) before his recent role as Ser Otto Hightower, the conniving hand to the king in HBO’s “House of the Dragon” (2022). In “Nyad,” he plays the committed but cynical boat captain John Bartlett, who overcomes his realistic doubts about Diana’s mission, constantly citing the cornucopia of factors working against her.
Screenwriter Julia Cox (“Parenthood”) does an impressive job of rolling out these obstacles with riveting pacing, turning something that could have been visually monotonous and narratively dry (pun not intended) into a gripping adventure with multiple failed attempts due to extreme weather, ocean currents steering her off course, jellyfish stings, looming shark attacks and even hallucinations as the waves turn the minutes to hours.
There’s no one better to film it than co-directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, who previously directed the Oscar-winning documentary “Free Solo” (2018) about Alex Honnold’s death-defying feat of climbing El Capitan in Yosemite National Park alone without a rope, followed by their BAFTA-nominated documentary “The Rescue” (2021) about the rescue of 12 soccer players and their coach from a flooded cave in Northern Thailand.
The end result is an inspirational tale of man vs. nature, or in this case, woman vs. nature. As Nyad triumphantly emerges onto the beach, she declares the film’s themes: “I just wanna say three things: (1) Never, ever give up, (2) You’re never too old to chase your dreams, and (3) It looks like a solitary sport, but it takes a team.” The lattermost completes her character arc, overcoming her selfishness (and past trauma) to appreciate the people around her.
