Film Review: NYAD

Many people consider Meryl Streep the best American actress "of our time," but the body of work produced by four-(4) time Academy Award™® nominee Annette Bening and two-(2) time Academy Award™® winning Jodie Foster is equally impressive. In fact, it was a stroke of genius for Valerie Daniella Hernandez Oloffson and Avy Kaufman to cast Bening, 65, and Foster, 60, because the "real life" characters were not young women, but seasoned, vibrant, mature women with life experience and wrinkles, which made them very believable. The wrinkles not only worked, but hopefully, "those men" who overwhelmingly and ultimately make the final decision on financing films will greenlight more films featuring women over 60 in feature films.

As Diana Nyad, Bening literally got on your nerves with her very demanding, singlemindedness pursuit to achieve her objective to swim one-hundred-and-three-(103) miles from Cuba to Key West Florida. However, as a career athlete myself, I easily identified with Nyad's discipline and commitment to achieve her objective despite naysayers who not only lack the mental and physical conviction, but have absolutely no idea what it takes to push a human body to its ultimate limits. In order to mirror the "real life" Nyad, Bening spent a lot of time in water, salt water, and without regard to the makeup, Bening appropriately looked wet and weathered.

As best friends, not lovers, the relationship projected by Bening and Foster reflected the character and scope one should expect of friends. As Coach Stoll, Foster brought sincerity and intensity while also being supportive and nurturing. However, as Bening's Nyad pursued her singleminded objective with ruthless abandonment, Stoll's commitment shifted to address her own needs, her demand for both emotional and physical space. Likewise, Rhys Ifans was excellent as the ship's navigator John Bartlett, who also sought freedom from Nyad's recklessness, her self-centered ambition, her refusal to acknowledge the negative impact her narcissism had on others.

Unfortunately, noticeably missing from the script is the fact Nyad's perilous crossing from Cuba to Florida was denied ratification even as recently as September 2023 by the World Open Water Swimming Association (WOWSA) and previously deleted from the Guinness Book of World Records, due to incomplete documentation and conflicting crew reports to validate her achievement. Think about it, even back in 2013, Nyad could have mounted a GoPro camera or similar devices on John Bartlett's ship to continuously document her entire swim, or used various GPS (Global Positioning System) devices to continuously pinpoint her entire swim, but apparently Nyad did not do so. Why not? The failure of film to address this issue only empowers naysayers and skeptics to doubt Nyad's "alleged" achievement, and to deem her entire swim as a staged event, a fantasy for media attention.