Pulled after covering 76 miles of her planned 103-mile swim from Cuba to Florida, Diana Nyad (Annette Bening), distraught from her failure, entered retirement from marathon swimming.  33 years later, Diana, now in her 60s decides to return to Cuba, make the swim, and finally claim her legacy.  Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster), a close friend of the champion swimmer, agrees to take on the role of coach simply to appease Diana and be there when she realizes returning to the water at her age is an even crazier idea now than it was when she was in her prime.  After extensive training, though, and the assembling of a support crew, Bonnie gives in and agrees that Diana is ready to do the impossible. 

Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi direct the inspirational sports drama, Nyad, for Netflix from Julia Cox’s screenplay adapted from Diana Nyad’s memoir “Find a Way.”  Premiering at Telluride, both Bening and Foster came away with some mild, early buzz about their performances in the 121-minute biopic.  Playing fiercely loyal friends – and foils – to one another, their chemistry is what helps elevate this otherwise dull drama into something enjoyable.  Additionally helped along by an easy-going ensemble cast, the film goes down almost too easily, but some solid editing by Christopher Tellefsen makes sure there is always some narrative tension lurking just beneath the surface.

In the title role, Bening plays Diana and brings a bristling energy to the marathon swimmer.  Her no-nonsense approach takes some time to get used to, and Bening is relentless as she embodies the swimmer in her pursuit of perfection and achievement.  Eventually, she wears audiences down to where we are eager to see her get back in the water and for those who get especially hooked, feel inspired by her actions even as she pushes those closest to her away.  Nyad chronicles a dual crucible for Diana, not just in the water, but interpersonally she has to recognize that she is still only human.  It is a really unglamorous role, not only in how Bening must hold Diana for the majority of the film so that she has somewhere to grow from, but physically as well because she is often any combination of soaking wet, tired, bloated, sunburnt, and scarred.  It would all look great on the recap reel at the Academy Awards, but Bening is outshined by her main costar at almost every turn despite having the more “Capital A” Acting role. 

Bonnie is there supporting Diana every step, errr, stroke of the way and Foster gets to fill a much more amicable and welcoming role in the film.  With much more of the emotional weight of the narrative on her shoulders, Foster is our entry point into this world of impossible feats.  She tries to humanize Diana at the beginning citing her age, years of retirement, and just the sheer magnitude of the swim itself.  Foster perfectly captures the mix of thinking this is a crazy idea but getting caught up in the excitement and the adrenaline rush of it all.  In the comfort of our homes, we are able to build trust with Bonnie so that she can become a barometer for us; if she is worried, we know things are serious, but if she is confident, then we can sit and cheer on Diana without fear. 

Fear is the one thing really holding this film back from being as powerful as it wants to be, more so in the absence of it.  The message is inspiring as it follows the general track of an underdog sports drama, but there is not enough doubt, fear, or danger to really get our blood pumping from the seats.  A few sea creatures make some ferocious appearances – first a box jellyfish followed later by a shark – and while it would be disingenuous to bend the facts to simply inject excitement into the narrative, it still feels like filmmakers are smoothing over the edges of the dangers of Diana’s swim.  While it shows the multiple attempts, there is little struggle shown or felt beyond the immediate, but Foster helps convey a weariness and also a resolve that helps keep us invested in a story that otherwise would be all too easy to skip over. As for Diana, even though she is hospitalized after each attempt, there is a comical resiliency about her that does not serve the film well.

While Diana does not display much fear across the film, the filmmakers do in how they handle a series of flashback sequences to when Diana was a girl as she trained under Coach Jack Nelson (Eric T. Miller).  Nelson has been accused of molesting many of the young girls he taught, including Diana, and while it is certainly a major aspect of Diana’s life, the filmmakers seem totally unsure of how to handle it.  They rightfully do not show any of the abuse, only heavy allusions to it, and Anna Harriette Pittman who portrays Diana as a teenager in these fraught sequences, handles the situation with appropriate gravity.  The violence against her does not occupy a lot of screen time, but it also does not exist as a passed-off remark, either.  Entire locations and a younger cast were brought in for these scenes.  It feels wrong to say that these sequences are unimportant simply because they do not play into the larger narrative – they clearly have influenced and shaped Diana – but on a strictly narrative level, it feels like padding. 

One of the other things that makes Nyad such a strange experience to watch, even for a casual viewer, is the cady-coated political world in which the film is seemingly set. While the film is not looking to engage in discussions about US/Cuban policy, the setting of the swim and the allusions the route draws against the thousands of migrants that make a similar trek each year is unavoidable, yet the film makes only the most cursory reference to travel having recently opened up between the two nations. Ultimately, the film is following Diana’s triumph over nature and her own physical and mental capabilities and not working as a document about immigration, but to see this trip have so many millions of dollars funded into it across her multiple attempts and made into a ratings spectacle, it feels unintentionally sinister that there is no mention of the Cuban refugees who perished while making that same trip with far less resources, and that those who did make land in Florida were demonized by the same voices that sung Diana’s praises on the networks. It is, admittedly, an apples-to-oranges argument, but at the same time, they are being sold at the same market and the film is unequipped to handle that so instead tries to ignore it completely, an approach that just leaves audiences feeling slightly uncomfortable throughout. 

Nyad is a pretty paint-by-numbers biopic that does shake itself from its episodic format into something that does feel a little more cohesive as a single arc.  The story is still inspiring despite the bristling nature of its title character, and the growth that she undergoes is nice to see.  It is surprising, though, how it takes such a seemingly solitary sport and makes it a team effort; something which Diana herself exclaims in one of the final moments of the film.  As such, the ensemble really does perfectly complement the dynamic built between Bening and Foster.  John the navigator (Rhys Ifans), Dee the Capitan (Karly Rothenberg), Luke (Luke Cosgrove) and Marcus (Marcus Young) in the kayaks on shark duty, and Dr. Angel (Jeena Yi) who further humanizes Diana as she outfits her with jellyfish protection all flesh out the cast and get to participate in the film’s version of a training montage as they trial and error their new tech or mumble amongst themselves their hopes and fears about Diana’s latest outing.  While a few less flashbacks and a little more banter between the ensemble would have made for a far more enjoyable film, ultimately, that would tilt the spotlight away from Diana who remains the heart of the story, and she does her best, in her own way, to share her success with her team.