In 2018, filmmakers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi directed the Oscar-winning Free Solo, a documentary of rock climber Alex Honnold’s attempt to climb El Capitan in Yosemite National Park alone and without a rope. Free Solo is a straightforward narrative of one man’s preparation for the biggest physical and mental challenge of his career. It’s also unsparing in showing the drive inside a person like Honnold, and what it’s like to be that person’s friend, family member or romantic partner. Free Solo respects Honnold’s discipline and skill, but it’s also not afraid to call him out as kind of a jerk. That approach is what makes Chin and Vasarhelyi a great fit to helm Nyad, the pair’s first narrative feature, which follows marathon swimming icon Diana Nyad (Annette Bening) as the 60-year-old attempts to complete a 110-mile swim from Cuba to Florida.
The swim is Nyad’s white whale, an achievement she first attempted at age 29. After years of retirement, Nyad decides it’s time to go for it again, dragging her best friend Bonnie (Jodie Foster) along as her coach. Nyad’s first attempt is unsuccessful, but she keeps coming back, spurred by her own dogged ambition and the personal demons she struggles to face down.
Adapted from Find a Way, Nyad’s book about her experience, Nyad is an inspiring tale of perseverance and refusing to give up on yourself. However, much like Free Solo, it’s also an exploration of the kind of person it takes to do what Nyad did at her age—and it’s often not a positive picture. Bening’s Diana Nyad is prickly and pretentious; her exclamation of “courage!” in French and blowing a trumpet before starting her first swim induces eye rolls with its misplaced confidence (which is kind of the point).
Nyad also takes her team for granted, assuming Bonnie and their grizzled navigator John (Rhys Ifans) will drop everything to help her with each renewed attempt. It takes several tough conversations for Nyad to realize the emotional toll her dream takes on Bonnie, who knows the many risks involved for her friend, and the personal and financial costs it incurs upon John, who’s volunteering his boat and expertise.
Chin and Vasarhelyi, and writer Julia Cox, present all this matter-of-factly. They’re not judgmental, but they are honest, something that comes through in Bening’s unglamorous performance (the actress is 65 and admirably allows herself to look every inch of it) and the lived-in feeling of her friendship with Foster’s Bonnie. The two are unfailingly real with each other. Nyad always says exactly what’s on her mind, no matter how self-important or nuts it may sound, and Bonnie responds with straight talk.