Nyad (2023)
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Nyad Movie Review
Nyad is a 2023 biographical sports drama film directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin and starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster. It’s a well acted, but flawed movie.
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“Your superiority complex is really screwed up, you know that?“
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Sixty-four-year-old marathon swimmer Diana Nyad attempts to become the first person ever to swim from Cuba to Florida and the movie documents her relationship with her best friend and coach as well as the aforementioned quest. I purposefully used that word document as the movie was directed by the duo of Chin and Vasarhelyi, a pair of renowned documentary filmmakers behind ‘The Rescue’ and ‘Free Solo’.
This was their first narrative feature film effort and they simply weren’t up to the task. Way too often they just let their actors do the work for them and most of the movie had that documentarian feel, thus making me wonder why they just hadn’t made a documentary about this story in the first place.
Nyad is worth seeing for its excellent performances, in particular that of Jodie Foster. She portrayed best friend and coach to Diana Nyad, and their friendship was the heart of this movie. It was heartwarming witnessing these two older women support each other and Bonnie was at the end of the day the heroine of this story as it was her support that helped her friend achieve her goal.
Foster was terrific and so well cast as Bonnie and she stole the movie from Bening herself, who was pretty good but I would counter that she was miscast as I never could picture her as an athlete both physically and in her mannerisms. I simply found Foster much more believable and more interesting and it is her character that kept me engaged throughout.
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Nyad has strong dialogue as some of the women’s conversations and discussions were terrific. The movie also looks excellent due to strong cinematography that captured her quest effectively. It’s a well made movie that was still too predictable as most sports biopics are. I wished that the movie focused more on the friendship angle than the sports angle as that is when it shined the most.
Nyad is the first narrative feature from acclaimed documentary directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin and they simply weren’t up to the task as the movie was too documentarian and not cinematic enough. It’s a standard, predictable sports biopic that was at its best when it focused on the friendship angle. Another highlight was Jodie Foster, who stole the movie from Annette Bening as she was much more confident in a much more interesting role.
My Rating – 3.5
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