Review: ‘Nyad’ swims and sometimes sinks, but Bening’s performance is Annette gain

The word “Nyad” is a derivation of “naiad,” the water nymph from Greek mythology. Should you forget this crucial information, never fear; you will be reminded, early and often, by Diana Nyad herself, or at least the version of her we meet in the clunky but affecting sports drama “Nyad.” A marathon swimmer in her 60s, Diana is a fierce proponent of working hard and never giving up, but she is also a believer in destiny. With a name like Nyad (and remember, that’s a derivation of “naiad,” the water nymph from Greek mythology), how could she not fulfill her dream of becoming the first person to complete an unassisted swim from Cuba to Florida? Who else could plow her way through 100-plus miles of open ocean over 50-plus hours straight, with no direct human contact, no boat breaks, no potty breaks, no shark cages and no inflatable donuts?

The real-life Nyad finally pulled off that feat at the age of 64 in September 2013, more than three decades after her first failed attempt in 1978. An early highlights montage, cut together from old TV footage, shows the younger Nyad in action, not just as a powerhouse marathon swimmer but also as a talk-show circuit dynamo. Her bull-by-the-horns tenacity is seldom more evident than when she upstages Johnny Carson, a spotlight-grabbing moment that foreshadows her future career as a sports broadcaster. And now, as played with fierce physicality and grueling commitment by Annette Bening, Diana is a movie character: an impossible person who achieved the impossible, a naiad whose truer mythological counterpart might be Narcissus.

And “Nyad,” directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, honors its heroine by proving every bit as single-minded and subtlety-free as she is. The story proper begins in 2010, right around the time Diana (Bening), long retired from swimming, decides to return to the pool, get back in competitive shape, jet down to Havana and finish what she started all those years ago. Her best friend, former fling and toughest critic, Bonnie Stoll (a wonderful Jodie Foster), thinks she’s crazy but agrees to be her coach, setting in motion a years-long journey that will find Diana battling the elements, box jellyfish, ageism, media skepticism, reluctant sponsors and, most of all, herself.

Annette Bening, left, and Jodie Foster in the movie “Nyad.”

(Kimberley French / Netflix)

She is very much her own worst enemy, something that Julia Cox’s script gives her opportunity after obvious opportunity to demonstrate. She repeatedly butts heads with John Bartlett (a nicely weary Rhys Ifans), the seasoned navigator she hires to chart just the right course through potentially adverse winds and unpredictable Caribbean currents. She alienates Bonnie and the whole team with bloated speeches, anti-mediocrity platitudes, bursts of temper and displays of ingratitude. The movie, to its credit, harbors few illusions about Diana’s people skills. And it has, in Bening, an actor with a natural affinity for rough edges and sharp retorts, plus an ability to make emotional sense of a character’s fury. If this Diana is demanding of others, we understand, it’s because she’s more demanding of herself.

Which is not to say she always holds herself to the highest standards. At one point she exaggerates an old story from her glory days, which is as close as the movie comes to hinting at the intense criticism the real Nyad (psst, a derivation of “naiad,” the water nymph from Greek mythology) has sparked from others in the marathon-swimming community. Those gripes, aired in a recent Times investigation by my colleague Josh Rottenberg, have called out Nyad’s habit of inflating her own achievements, essentially likening her to Donald Trump with prunier skin. But her defenders have pushed back, suggesting that the overreaction to Nyad’s success and outspokenness in some quarters smacks of misogyny and homophobia.

Achievement inflation, of course, is neither a new thing nor a fatal flaw in the world of biopic mythmaking; more than a few Oscar strategists might even call it a necessity of the genre. That’s not to absolve “Nyad” of its own exaggerations and evasions, only to suggest that the movie’s chief problems, as well as its redemptive pleasures, lie elsewhere.

It’s engrossing, for example, to learn about all the moving parts and hard-working personnel behind such an ambitious undertaking, to absorb the mechanics and logistics of sailing, fending off sharks and ensuring that Diana doesn’t starve, drown, swim off-course, succumb to exhaustion-induced hallucinations or break the rules for an unassisted swim. This is Vasarhelyi and Chin’s first fiction feature after a string of celebrated documentaries (including “The Rescue” and the Oscar-winning “Free Solo”), and their love for the nuts and bolts of extreme sports proves geekily infectious.

Annette Bening in the movie “Nyad.”

(Liz Parkinson / Netflix)

They are less skilled when it comes to basic narrative assembly, the challenge of sustaining interest and doling out suspense across their protagonist’s multiple failed swim attempts. The filmmakers’ response, which is to shoot and cut the swim scenes as kinetically and sometimes incoherently as possible, achieves the opposite effect, undermining any real sense of the duration and the tedium that were surely part of Diana’s experience. The movie’s clumsiest miscalculation is to intercut the swim scenes with flashbacks to a young Diana being sexually assaulted by a male swimming coach, an experience that feels trivialized by its placement here.

That “Nyad” does achieve a measure of suspense and catharsis by its final scenes is a credit to Bening’s persuasive display of fatigue, and also to Foster’s enormously winning turn as the unflaggingly loyal Bonnie. Forever putting her own dreams on hold, happily toiling in Diana’s shadow and refusing to abandon her boat-deck position for even a moment while her friend is swimming, Bonnie isn’t just the kind of character you want to throw your arms around. She performs the crucial role of advocating for Diana, of getting us to see Diana through her eyes.

The movie’s best scenes don’t take place in the water. They’re the ones where Bonnie scolds Diana, trolls Diana, puts Diana in her place, tells Diana she loves her and turns Diana’s own weaknesses into strengths. Bening and Foster are so enjoyable to watch together, the best version of this material might be not an inspirational sports biopic but a half-hour buddy sitcom: “That’s So Nyad!*”

*a derivation of “naiad,” the water nymph from Greek mythology