NYAD

Most sports biopics want you to fall head-over-heels for the underdog, but NYAD takes a more daring route: it asks you to spend two hours with a world-class narcissist. It’s a fascinating pivot for the mid-2020s streaming landscape, where "likability" is often treated as a mandatory metric for a Netflix algorithm’s blessing. I went into this expecting a standard-issue triumph-of-the-spirit story, but I walked away more impressed by the film's willingness to let its protagonist be a genuine pain in the neck. I watched this while eating a bowl of overly salty popcorn, which felt unintentionally thematic considering the sheer volume of seawater the characters swallow.

The Audacity of the Ego

Directed by the powerhouse documentary duo Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi—the minds behind the vertigo-inducing Free Solo (2018)—NYAD marks their first foray into narrative features. You can feel their documentary roots in the way the film treats the ocean. It isn’t just a backdrop; it’s a terrifying, gelatinous monster filled with box jellyfish and Tiger sharks. But the real beast is Annette Bening as Diana Nyad.

Annette Bening is absolutely fearless here, and I don’t just mean because she spends most of the runtime in a swimsuit without a drop of "Hollywood de-aging" in sight. She captures the jagged edges of a woman who is so obsessed with her legacy that she forgets to be a person. Diana Nyad is the Michael Jordan of being incredibly annoying to your friends. She’s abrasive, self-centered, and relentlessly intense. In an era of cinema that often buffs out the flaws of historical figures to make them more palatable for social media discourse, Bening’s performance is a refreshing blast of salt air.

The Bonnie Stoll Effect

If Bening is the unstoppable force, Jodie Foster is the immovable object as Bonnie Stoll, Diana’s best friend and coach. The chemistry between these two is the film's secret weapon. It’s rare to see a contemporary drama celebrate a platonic, late-in-life female friendship with this much grit and humor. Jodie Foster delivers her best work in years, playing Bonnie with a weary, sun-drenched loyalty that ground the movie whenever Diana’s ego threatens to float away.

The film also benefits from Rhys Ifans as John Bartlett, the salty boat captain who looks like he was born from a marriage between a lighthouse and a bottle of rum. His performance adds a layer of technical stakes to the swim; he’s the one calculating the Gulf Stream currents that make or break the journey. Between Bening, Foster, and Ifans, the "team" feels like a group of people who actually lived in each other’s pockets for years, rather than actors meeting for the first time at a table read.

Navigating the "True Story" Waters

Because this was released in 2023, it couldn't escape the "fact-check" gauntlet of the internet. Shortly after it hit Netflix, the marathon swimming community reignited long-standing debates about whether Nyad’s 2013 swim was truly "unassisted." The directors handle this by leaning into Diana's reliability—or lack thereof—as a narrator. The film weaves in archival footage of the real Nyad, which serves as a constant reminder that this isn't just a Hollywood script; it’s a dramatization of a woman who was already mythologizing herself in real-time.

Behind the scenes, the production was quite a feat. While they used a massive water tank in the Dominican Republic, the effects team used sophisticated LED volume technology (similar to The Mandalorian) to create a horizon that looks terrifyingly endless. Cinematographer Claudio Miranda, who previously won an Oscar for Life of Pi (2012), knows how to make water look both beautiful and hostile. There’s a specific shot of Bening floating under the stars that made me feel the crushing isolation of the open sea—reminding me why I prefer to keep my swimming strictly confined to the shallow end of a YMCA pool.

The film does occasionally fall into the trap of the conventional biopic structure—flashbacks to childhood trauma feel a bit "Biopic 101"—but it’s saved by its leading ladies. It’s a film about the refusal to go quietly into the night, delivered by two actresses who are currently doing the best work of their careers. If you can handle a protagonist who doesn't care if you like her, you’ll find a story that’s surprisingly moving. Just make sure you have a glass of water nearby; the salt is palpable.