November 5, 2023
When American marathon swimmer Diana Nyad was 28 years old, she attempted to swim the 180km stretch of sea from Havana to Key West. She did not make it. For the next 30 years, she stopped swimming, and worked as a TV sports commentator. When Diana (Annette Bening) turned 60, she started swimming again. Once she got her rhythm and drive back, she decided she could finally complete her long-elusive dream, against all odds.
With her best friend Bonnie (Jodie Foster) as her coach and trainer, Diana got herself back into optimum physical condition. She hired veteran John Bartlett (Rhys Ifans) as her chief navigator. More experts joined her team as the need arose -- medic Jon Rose (Garland Scott), shark expert Luke Tipple (Luke Cosgrove), a box jellyfish expert Angel Yanagihara (Jeena Yi), and boat captain of the Voyager Dee Brady (Karly Rothenberg).
Writer Julia Cox based her script from Nyad's 2015 autobiography "Find a Way." This is the feature film directorial debut for team Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, who had been acclaimed documentary film directors for 20 years. They won the Oscars in 2019 for Best Documentary Feature for "Free Solo" about a young man who did the first free solo climb of a 3,000-foot vertical rock face at Yosemite National Park called "El Capitan".
Vasarhelyi and Chin also tackles basically the same story of human triumph against nature here in "Nyad." They had a very documentary storytelling style in here bringing us in the water with a spirited sexagenarian woman who was trying to do the very first swim across the Florida Strait with no shark cage, exposing us to all the perils of sea -- unpredictable weather, treacherous currents, deadly sea creatures -- that she had to face and overcome.
Annette Bening and Jodie Foster will likely both earn Oscar nominations for their natural performances here. Both had been nominated for Oscars four times before, Bening with no wins, Foster with two. Bening totally immersed herself into the challenging role of a real-life person who strove to do the impossible -- Oscar-bait for sure. Bonnie is the prime definition of a supporting character, and Foster delivered with so much heart and delight. 7/10.
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