Nyad (2023) tells the story of Diana Nyad’s (Annette Bening) multiple attempts and failures to swim unassisted from Cuba to the Florida Keys. Having already held multiple world records from her other swims, but this particular route was her white whale – it had eluded her since her first attempt in 1978. 33 years later, at the age of 61, Diana began the next of what would ultimately be five total attempts at the record.

Nyad is a story of perseverance, but in telling that story, the plot gets cyclical – try, fail, make adjustments, try, fail, make adjustments, and so on. It’s the natural progression of attempting something never before accomplished, but in a narrative, it lacks a propulsive interest that keeps the plot engaging. Luckily, Annette Bening and Jodi Foster have an incredibly interesting chemistry as a pair of aging lesbians that once had a fling long ago, but are now lifelong friends. They’ve been nominated for Best Actress and Best Featured Actress respectively, and while I think there’s a magic in the combination of the two, individually, their performances are relatively run-of-the-mill. Bening’s portrayal of Nyad’s complete physical surrender to the purpose of making the impossible possible is impressive, but it’s difficult to get absorbed in the performance when she spends half of the movie face-down in the ocean. I actually remember more of Foster’s performance, given that we spend most of Bening’s time in the water with Foster on the boat. The movie is, for the most part, fine. However, in Nyad’s final attempt at the swim, there is a sequence where the electronic shark repellant devices go dead as a large mako approaches, and the device is, of course, restarted just in time to deter it from attacking. Nothing I can find indicates that this actually happened, and the inclusion of the scene robs the movie of any realism it had going for it. The term “jumping the shark” comes to mind – a last gasp that’s blatantly meant to stir up some semblance of dramatic action.