“Swimzilla” isn’t a thing yet, is it? Maybe we just have to wait and see if Michael Phelps is still a decent guy in his post-glory days. By all accounts, Diana Nyad is among the most superlative endurance athletes ever to have graced the human species. And if Nyad (based on an autobiography by Diana Nyad) is to be believed, she was also a selfish asshole, blindly pursuing bitter personal glory to fill some sort of interior cavity nothing else could. Not that she tried anything else.
Long distance athlete extraordinaire Diana Nyad (Annette Bening) gave up her dream of swimming from Havana-to-Key-West after a failed attempt in 1978. At the time, she was 28. Could the feat be done, by any human? Here are the obstacles: the distance is roughly 110 miles. And that’s if you swim straight, which is no given. Elite swimmers will still be spending over two days in the water without so much as a floatie. Then there’s the hypothermia, which is a challenge, even in the tropical Caribbean. Don’t forget the currents. The straits between Cuba and Florida have a constant flow which could lead the unmonitored swimmer swept off to Africa. Depending on current, the slow swimmer will simply be going backwards. Weather is always a factor. This venture can only be attempted by humans a few times a year for lack of compatible conditions. Finally, if you are fast enough and strong enough and lucky enough and have a team of support and pick the right day, there’s the wildlife. Jellyfish and sharks are hazards. Both play roles in this film.
Oh, did you know there’s a cost factor, too? For the privilege of swimming from Havana to Key West, Diana Nyad had to come up with $500,000. That alone is prohibitive for 99% of the world’s population.
In 2010, at the age of 60, after a thirty-year layoff from the sport, Diana Nyad found swimming pools again. You know the cliché of the morbidly obese person sidling up with a chair to the all-you-can-eat salad bar? Imagine that only with Diana Nyad and swimming pools at the “Y.” She was determined that she was going to do the Cuba-to-Florida thing again. This time with the help of her friend and personal punching bag, Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster). Annette Bening plays Nyad as an obsessive and often bitter woman, struggling to hunt down her figurative white whale without a decent realization of the toll it is taking on others besides herself. I have no doubt
Bening nailed this role … which essentially comes off as Diana Nyad, athlete: awesome. You rock! Diana Nyad, human being: Go jump in a lake.
Look, lady, if it’s just you and a swimming pool, you’re not really hurting anybody (besides, maybe, other swimmers and the staff at the pool), but once you factor in the dangers of this adventure, entire lives get put on hold so that you can achieve your dream.
Throughout this film, I kept hearing the words of Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park: “You were so preoccupied with whether you could, you didn’t stop to think if you should.” I used to think that the Guiness World Record crowd was entirely comprised of moronic self-indulgent glory hounds. I never considered the people they abused in order to chase their 15 minutes of fame. Behind every absurd feat of human glory, there’s not just a self-involved idiot, there’s also -quite likely- a Bonnie Stoll and/or a team of eye-rolling enablers unable to talk them out of it. The more focused group eventually etch their name on something no one will care about. The untalented among them becomes incels, I imagine.
This swim would be an incredible feat for the greatest swimmers that ever lived while in their prime. Diana Nyad made four legitimate attempts past the age of 60. I will happily call her one of the greatest athletes ever to live, without exception. As the son of an ultra-marathoner, however, I will also call her a self-indulgent, egomaniacal jerk. I’m sorry that this is how we know who you are. In addition, I commend the spot-on performance by Bening while recognizing it is still a travesty to nominate her over Margot Robbie for Barbie. I’d also be remiss in not pointing out that swimming ain’t exactly Rollerball for sports excitement making the viewing of Nyad a bit of an endurance test on its own.
In lieu of a poem today, I’m going to go over some of the crossing attempts the film did not cover:
Rated PG-13, 121 Minutes
Director: Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Writer: Julia Cox, Diana Nyad
Genre: Stupid human tricks
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who read The Guiness Book of World Records for insight
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Children of ultra-marathoners
