What you see in Nyad – a film that spends most of its time in the vast ocean of the Florida Straights – is the difficulty of film adaptation. The story of Diana Nyad is compelling and inspiring – because of her stunning feat of athletic stamina as well as the tyrannical fear of failure that motivates her to do so –  but at the end of the day, she’s a protagonist who’s going to spend a majority of the story submerged in water. So, who to direct, you might think, than Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the directors behind Free Solo, a documentary so absorbing in its depiction of rock climber Alex Honnold that you perpetually fear for the mortality of someone you know won’t die. I understand the logic, but Nyad proves that there’s a big difference in making found footage cinematic and starting from scratch.

I should say that Nyad is a much better film than it has any right to be, but that is mostly because of the performances from Annette Bening and Jodie Foster. Bening plays Nyad, the committed but hard-headed swimmer who decides, at age 60, to complete her life’s dream of swimming from Cuba to Florida. Foster plays Bonnie Stoll, Diana’s closest friend (only friend?) who takes on the responsibility of being her coach. Their relationship is so closely intimate that it stretches beyond the limits of friendship or even romance. Their love for each other is innate, and screenwriter Julia Cox does well by making that love the center of the story without trivializing it with inauthentic dramatics. Nyad is at its best when it’s centered on Bening and Foster. That may seem simple but its something that Vasarhelyi and Chin forget too often.

This goes back to how one makes Diana Nyad’s mission cinematic. Cox’s script takes the route of giving the audience slight dollops of backstory throughout the film: glimpses of her childhood swimming, sexual abuse from a respected coach, failed attempts at her Cuban swim in her twenties. It’s a common enough method with contemporary biopics and one that often gives you the worst of both worlds: the exposition often feels more laborious ladled out piecemeal while the main story is frequently interrupted by it. It’s a push and pull between providing context for Diana’s behavior and giving her a chance to speak for herself as a character. I think Nyad is much better when it chooses to do the latter. Few actors do better with complicated characters than Bening.

I’ll give the movie credit for this: it does not shy away from Diana’s extreme narcissism nor does it valorize it as a consequence of greatness (one of the film’s genuine laughs is watching Diana cheer when a much younger swimmer attempts the swim and fails miserably). If anything, her hubris is often an obstacle, as she alienates the team that she depends on. This includes John Bartlett (a very good Rhys Ifans), a scruffy but masterful navigator who tries to help Diana cross the gulf’s impossible wind surges. It’s John who says when the appropriate window is for attempting the swim, but Diana is often impatient, willing to chance it for a shot at immortality. The person who most often faces the brunt of Diana’s temper is Bonnie. The fights are often about the same thing: her team wants to do everything to keep her alive, while Diana is willing to die trying.

The creative decisions made in the attempt of making Diana’s various swims “cinematic” are often baffling, occasionally hovering around the unintentionally funny. There are moments when the camera swoops around the sea with the luxurious scope that recalls the directors’ work on Free Solo, but those are few and far between. Perhaps these are attempts to be faithful to Diana Nyad’s memoir, Find a Way; if not, then there’s even less of an excuse. Diana’s story – her refusal to give up and her utter adamance about controlling her life’s narrative – is legitimately inspiring, even if Nyad does cut it with stark reminders of Diana’s unpleasant personality. But the film gets caught up in interpretation, forgetting the greatest lesson from Free Solo: sometimes the very act itself is cinematic enough.

Nyad is best as a showcase for Bening and Foster, two veteran actors who make a tremendous statement – emotionally and physically – for their continued relevance in a culture that doesn’t always respect women of a certain age. Bening is the film’s star, but Foster steals the movie with her performance, which is heartfelt and genuine. Its also one of the few times that Foster – who’s enjoyed being coy about her own queerness – plays an openly queer character. I agree with Foster that none of that should really matter, but it does give us a version of Foster (who’s been a working actor for over fifty years) that we’ve never seen before. One of my favorite parts of watching movies is learning that a performer I’ve been watching all my life is still capable of something tremendous, and Foster is tremendous here.

 

Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin