Nyad: “You're Never Too Old to Go After Your Dreams” Spoilers

The biographical film Nyad, which dropped on Netflix in early November, is undoubtedly a game-changer for its directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. This is the first time this duo, which previously snagged the Best Documentary Feature title at the 91st Academy Awards with Free Solo, has taken a crack at a narrative feature film. You can totally see Vasarhelyi and Chin's breakthrough in their shift from making documentaries to narrative films. For fans who know their style of work, Nyad not only marks their breakthrough, but it is also a comeback. After producing Return to Space and Wild Life, Vasarhelyi and Chin have gone back to their roots of telling personal stories that brought them to fame, focusing on marginalized people instead of just successful heroes. From the perspective of personal storytelling, what could be more inspiring and worth sharing than the story of a lesbian swimmer who may not be at her peak anymore but still pushes herself to set new records in open-water races? Nyad, which is based on a true story, tells exactly that.

As a debut feature film directed by Vasarhelyi and Chin, Nyad is a notable achievement in their directing careers. While the film is based on real-life characters and events, the process of filming a narrative film differs from that of a documentary. In a narrative film, the casting of actors is crucial. Annette Bening portrays the renowned marathon swimmer Diana Nyad in the film. Nyad makes five attempts to swim from Cuba to Florida over a period of more than 30 years. Finally, at the age of 64 in 2013, she successfully completes the 110-mile journey in 52 hours and 54 minutes to become the first person to cross the Florida Straits without a shark cage. Bening is the same age as Nyad when she accomplished this impressive feat. As an actress, Bening has previously received four Oscar nominations for her performances but has never won an award. After watching Nyad, I fervently believe that Bening will once again be a strong contender in the upcoming awards season.

Vasarhelyi and Chin also show off their amazing skills in handling materials while shooting documentaries. They did a really great job at handling high-quality materials right from the beginning of the film. Nyad starts things off with a carefully crafted montage of news reports about the main character. In the first two minutes, the film gives the audience a general idea of Nyad's successes and failures in her 20s, which was the prime time of her athletic career, as well as information about her personality. After the montage, we see her 60-year-old self holding her breath under the water in a bathtub. The spatial transition from the vast sea to a narrow bathtub sends a clear message - the former "water nymph" is trapped and stranded. Before Nyad starts swimming again and crushes her goal of over 8 hours of non-stop open-water swimming, she hardly ever cracks a smile. Seemingly fueled by some form of belief, she sinks into anxiety, and struggles to cope with the huge gap between her ideals and reality. When Nyad goes back into the water, her only concern is how to achieve her dream, and at this point, the only expression on her face is determination.

Nyad knows that to pull off the feat of swimming from Cuba to Florida, she has to rely on not only her physical fitness but also her mental prowess. The biggest difference between her at 60 and 30 is her mentality. After deciding to take on the impossible once again, Nyad knows that one of the most important things to do is to build a crew that can really help her achieve her goal. So, she asks her longtime buddy Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster) to be her coach, and she puts together a team that includes navigation pro John Bartlett (Rhys Ifans), shark expert Luke Tipple (Luke Cosgrove), and box jellyfish expert Angel Yanagihara (Jeena Yi). The next step for Nyad and her crew is to make sure that she swims through the Straits at the right time along the right route to make a successful crossing.

To be honest, the portrayal of Nyad's four attempts between 2010 and 2013 is the least impressive part of the whole movie. The film mostly follows a timeline, showing her three previous failures and eventual success. For Vasarhelyi and Chin, depicting the character's challenges and personal growth is not a tough task. They have been praised for truly capturing and presenting the protagonists’ failed attempts and ultimate triumphs in their previous documentaries. Throughout this process, the challenges and purposes of the protagonists’ actions are clear. Documentaries mainly rely on the character's actions and behaviors to shape their images, rather than just interviews. It is obvious that Vasarhelyi and Chin took a similar approach in portraying Nyad. They used simple repeated variations when showing her past four adventures to illustrate the different risks involved in long-distance swimming. However, the impacts of sharks, jellyfish, and harsh weather are reduced when they actually appear on the screen since they are mentioned multiple times before the real challenge even starts.

The film could have dug deeper into Nyad and the other characters by showcasing the four attempts in a more effective way. While it tries to include Nyad's memories from her youth to enrich her story, it does not quite establish a strong connection between her past experiences of being sexually abused by her coach and her present life, resulting in somewhat awkward flashback scenes. Also, the protagonist's repeated attempts at crossing the Straits make her eventual success less dramatic. By Nyad’s fifth try, the audience not only feels the joy when victory is within reach, but also a sense of relief that her suffering can finally end. This sense of relief raises questions about the significance of her challenge. As doubt creeps in, it becomes harder for the audience to fully empathize with the character.

However, Nyad's storytelling issues do not mean the biographical film is a total disaster. In my opinion, this movie explores two things that make it worth viewing: first, it tells the story of underrepresented folks chasing their dreams and pushing themselves beyond their limits; second, the film spends a good amount of time showing the purity and value of sisterhood. After conquering the challenge, Nyad sums up the purpose of her swim across the Straits in two sentences. She says, "Never, never give up," and "You're never too old to go after your dreams." At 64 years old, she finally fulfills the dream she had as a teenager, and the people who helped her achieve it are ordinary individuals. When nobody believed in Nyad's ability, it was the trust and support of her team that made such an amazing feat possible. After going back to telling personal stories of marginalized characters, Vasarhelyi and Chin are able to capitalize on their strengths in shaping characters.

Even though the movie is titled Nyad, I think its core lies in Nyad and her dream, and her enduring friendship with Bonnie. The two lesbians had a brief romance after they first met but ended up as close friends who have to see each other every day. The movie shows us that a strong friendship can develop between two women and that this friendship can be a force that constantly nourishes their lives. Bening and Foster did a great job playing two friends with different personalities but shared interests. They live ordinary but fulfilling and exciting lives, and the subtle chemistry between them proves that women who choose not to get married and have kids can still have their own emotional journeys and life experiences that go beyond kinship and love. I can honestly say that seeing the vibrant and lively states of Nyad and Bonnie makes me excited about my own life when I reach middle age and continues to grow old. The movie does not mention that the authorities do not recognize Nyad’s achievement, as The Guinness Book of World Records revoked her record. But hey, because she has a strong vitality and energy, she can confidently say, "Maybe I had too much hubris, like, 'I don't need to prove this to anybody.' That's my bad."

In a way, when Vasarhelyi and Chin decided to make a biographical film about a 60-year-old lesbian, they were already doing something groundbreaking. Nyad's inspiring life goes beyond achieving a new record in human history at the age of 64. It also shows us the unique lifestyles of Nyad and Bonnie, which are different from the mainstream, and their contagious vitality. That is why Nyad is not just a sports biopic but also an LGBT+ film that really speaks to people of our time.