Nyad review – Annette Bening pulls out all the stops in engaging swimming drama

Loneliness isn’t exactly the issue for the long-distance swimmer in this earnestly acted real-life motivational drama. It’s about Diana Nyad, a retired American swim champ turned sportscaster who, at 60 years old, set out to front-crawl her way uninterrupted from Cuba to Florida – 103 miles or five English Channels – facing down the sharks, the jellyfish and the sexist and ageist condescension. All through this story, people are crowding up to her: best friend Bonnie, grumpy, plain-speaking captain John in the accompanying boat, memories of her dad who inspired her and her coach who abused her.

And of course the whole idea of people getting close to Nyad assumes a new significance. She must swim alone – retching and shitting in the water by herself, taking liquified nourishment on the end of a pole, wearing a stifling anti-jellyfish mask and staying within the anti-shark electronic pulse field – because if anyone touches her, the whole attempt is void.

Annette Bening plays Nyad as a tough, borderline-crazy person, never giving up, even after multiple abortive efforts. She looks at people with eyes crinkled up and narrowed in incredulous and crazed disdain, like Clint Eastwood reading an optician’s chart. Bening pulls out all the stops as Nyad has a near-breakdown while she pursues the obsessive goal that could kill her. There is, sadly, much less for Jodie Foster to get her teeth into as her coach, friend and one-time lover Bonnie, who cajoles and exhorts her, but never looks all that upset or stressed by anything. It is a part that really doesn’t test her. Rhys Ifans has the Robert Shaw role, playing the grizzled old captain, piloting everyone through shark-infested, fatigue-infested, failure-infested waters.

This is a robust, rousing story, especially at the very end, but perhaps doesn’t quite find a way to absorb the awful fact of Diana’s abuse as a child. Of course, the point is that she’s a winner; she defies the cruelty and abuse by powering onwards and achieves something to inspire everyone. Fair enough. But it involves a dramatic quickness and glibness in passing over the painful memories as smoothly as possible.

Nyad is directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, who made the 2018 documentary Free Solo, about daredevil free climber Alex Honnold. This is a comparable story, of course, but there is a lot more Hollywood ham and cheese here and it doesn’t have the same authentic feel. Exhaustion is always a worry – but this heartfelt story is always watchable.