M, 120 minutes
4 Stars
Review by © Jane Freebury
While a film about a long-distance swimmer wasn’t a subject that you might expect to hold your interest over the course of a feature length movie, it’s a fair bet that a documentary about a rock climber wasn’t either, until Free Solo appeared a short while ago. The documentary about a young man’s attempt to become the first to climb El Capitan alone and without safety ropes was so compelling.
So, it’s welcome news that this film about Diana Nyad, the first woman to swim from Cuba to the US, is made by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, the same collaborating directors who filmed Alex Honnold making his way up the 2,300 metre rockface in in Yosemite National Park. A riveting survival documentary about the incredible Thai cave rescue is also their work. A very different proposition from on-the-spot documentary, Nyad with a smart and sometimes wryly funny screenplay by Julia Cox, is their first fiction feature.
Ten years ago, American journalist, motivational speaker and long-distance swimmer, Nyad’s fifth attempt at swimming from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida, a distance of 177 km, was successful. She was 64 years old when she finally completed the 53-hour swim that she had first attempted when she was 28. Her book, titled Find A Way, carries the same message as this film, that anything is possible. That beyond the necessary level of strength and endurance, a marathon swim was a classic case of mind over matter. So it helped Nyad enormously that she had a fantastic back catalogue of pop music hits in her head, including Janis Joplin, Neil Young and Simon & Garfunkel, to recall.
Two lead actors who bring their wordliness and astringent humour
Were it a race, Nyad would have had to do work on her dive. As it seems she liked to start off by plunging into the water feet first rather than flexing her body into a racing dive, she wasn’t going to see the opposition off with a dash to the finish line.
In Nyad, an in-form Annette Bening shows her range as someone a little less than engaging and lovable on this occasion. It’s the equally in-form Jodie Foster, who plays opposite as her best friend and coach, Bonnie Stoll. Seeing them on screen together is great, especially when we don’t see enough of either of these two, now in their sixties. As local expert, navigator and ‘chronic defeatist’ John Bartlett, Welsh actor Rhys Ifans brings his usual Welsh charm.
Learning that her eccentric, hard-driven friend is back in the pool and training for an open-water record shocks Bonnie at first, before she comes round. As they quote the words of the American poet Mary Oliver, the tone does tip into sentimental territory, but the characters played by Bening and Foster counter this with their worldliness and astringent humour.
Why not try speed dating or psychotherapy instead of a record-breaking ocean swim?
Why would Diana decide to give a swim that she failed at 35 years prior another go? Why not try speed dating, or psychotherapy, or something? Doesn’t she remember the deadly jellyfish, the man-eating sharks, the narrow window for success in treacherous ocean currents, or that it is going to take one quarter of a million swim strokes to cover the distance?
No, Diana is unmoved, and in early scenes gives hints of the obsessive personality type that comes to the fore as she tries again and again, dragging her team along with her. Flashbacks to her young self, show the family background that contributed to the way she is, and the influence of the surname Nyad, the Greek word for water spirit. It was the name of her adoptive father anyway.
That Nyad’s swim, done without a cage but with shark deterrence and covered head-to-toe in lycra and latex, is still awaiting official certification does detract from the triumph, but the film doesn’t go there. Controversy over the facts in bio pics seems to have become par for the course, with the high-profile ones anyway, especially close to awards season. Her profile as a gay athlete is also lightly brushed over.
Yet this is a fascinating portrait of a fiercely determined and committed woman, and likely pain-in-the-butt, who had incredible focus and out-of-the-ordinary capacity for physical endurance. A portrait achieved with a respectful curiosity, it is a tribute to the unusual, questing personalities who try things that most people wouldn’t dream of.
First published in the Canberra Times on 21 october 2023. Jane’s reviews are also published by Rotten Tomatoes