Nyad had a limited release in theatres at the end of October before airing on Netflix on November 3rd. I didn’t get to see it on the big screen, but it’s the type of movie that doesn’t need one to be enjoyed (I’ve watched it twice on my TV). No matter the screen size, it’s an inspiring biopic—especially for the older female audience.
Nyad should appeal to most adult women but particularly to women over 60, something this film analyst rarely gets to say. Few movies are made about older women, star women over 40 or portray older women as strong and capable. Nyad does all that and more.
Based on the book by world champion marathon swimmer Diana Nyad, Find A Way, the screenplay by Julia Cox tells the incredible story of the 60-year-old woman who wanted to set a world record and become an immortal by being the first person to swim non-stop from Cuba to Florida. After a failed attempt in 1978 at the age of 28, followed by a 30-year break from swimming, Diana Nyad believed she was finally ready to make the 100-mile swim. It took four more failed attempts but in 2013, at 64, she proved the naysayers wrong and achieved her dream with the help of her best friend and coach, Bonnie Stoll.
Diana is played by 65-year-old Annette Bening, and 61-year-old Jodie Foster plays Bonnie. Their loving friendship is as integral to the story as Diana’s drive to conquer bodies of water. Though Diana is a force to be reckoned with—and fixated on not succumbing to mediocrity—she needs Bonnie’s support to attain her goal. It’s uplifting to watch them work together to have a woman in her sixties accomplish a feat no one else has been able to pull off.
At the beginning of the movie, Diana has already made impressive swims, including Lake Ontario, around Manhattan Island, Bahamas to Florida… Moreover, she is the holder of Italy’s Capri to Naples world record. In footage of The Tonight Show from 1979, she tells Johnny Carson the swim she wants to do takes 60 hours and is “overly ambitious, but I think I can make it.”
We learn from a sportscaster that in the history of the world, only 116 people have swum over 24 hours straight and only 12 people have swum over 48 hours straight. As Diana herself admits, her goal is closer to impossible than possible.
We jump forward to 2010 and Diana’s 60th birthday and her frustration over everyone leading a banal existence. “Where’s the excellence?” she asks Bonnie, who replies, “Well, if you feel that way, do something about it!” After a sleepless night, Diana goes for a swim at her local pool—the first of many. When she decides she is ready to attempt the adventure again, she asks Bonnie to be her coach to get her functioning at the highest level. “I have more in me,” she says, “and so do you.”
Diana quits her sportscasting job to train full time. Bonnie drops her other coaching clients. They remortgage their houses. They hire a woman to captain the boat Diana swims alongside—from which Bonnie provides bottomless encouragement—as well as a shark team that paddles in kayaks alongside Diana to protect her from the 49 varieties of sharks that live in the Straits of Florida. Their team also includes a navigator (played by Rhys Ifans) and a female doctor (a biochemist and jellyfish expert!). We’re along for the ride of their three failed attempts and the final, successful one. It’s a great reminder to heed Mary Oliver’s question: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Nyad serves the female audience well. Besides the two lead females and their loving relationship are the numerous other female characters and exchanges between women, as well as the positive portrayals of lesbians. It is also full of congeniality and affection between female characters, including intergenerational (Diana and Bonnie hug seven times and exchange ‘I love yous’). In addition, the filmmakers showed consideration to the female audience in their depictions of sexual abuse; it is suggested, rather than graphically depicted. These inclusions may not seem worth getting excited over but trust me, they are much rarer in film than their absence.
The Mad Chance and Black Bear Pictures production’s greatest strength, however, is the way it smashes widespread perceptions about older women, whose abilities are one of the film’s main themes. Nyad’s directors, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and husband Jimmy Chin, championed older women from beginning to end, when Diana tells her cheering crowd in Key West, “You’re never too old to chase your dreams!”
At the beginning Diana says to Bonnie, “You turn 60, and the world decides that you’re a bag of bones.” Nyad demonstrates that the world has got it wrong. Perhaps 60 is when you achieve your wildest dream.
Nyad is rated PG-13. It has a running time of 121 minutes and was released on October 20.
Alline Cormier
Film analyst
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