REVIEW: NYAD

4/5

Sea Change. 

120 Mins. Starring: Annette Benning, Jodie Foster & Rhys Ifans. Screenplay: Julia Cox. Directors: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin. On: Netflix. 

If at first you don't succeed, show 'em you can still dance at 60. Swimmer Diana Nyad, born with the perfect surname across the stream, defied the odds when she swam from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. That's 110 miles of open water and calendar, as the days mark the month. Nyad achieving her dream at 64 (2013) after numerous tries (5 to be exact) since she was 28 (1978). The lion's, or should we say shark's share came in her 60s and now 65-year-old legend Annette Benning (with another one by her side in the great Jodie Foster) has gone all out like Robert Redford when 'All Was Lost' for the old man and the sea. Portraying this Diana, queen of the seas in a new Netflix movie bound for Oscar glory too. Bound to make an award season splash. Directed by married couple Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin for their first feature and based on how Nyad's memoir helped 'Find A Way', this is the feel-good film of the year, regardless of age. One that shows like Emma Stone's 'Battle Of The Sexes' as Billie Jean King that nothing can stand in the way of your dream, if you don't give up. Not sexism, nor sexual abuse, and certainly not age-discrimination as most of the youth dismissing this with a swipe of their phone only get up off their a## to plug in their charger. I'd say that that's me, but let's face it, I'm closer to the shores of Benning and Foster than I am today's in-crowd.

'Witness the incredible' on Netflix again, as the streaming service shows us that even if their big blockbusters sink without a trace, bobbing above the service, their Oscar season standards are always poised for the podium. You'll laugh, cry and feel oh so f'n frustrated at this biographical sports drama that serves like 'King Richard' and goes deep into the recesses of a competitors heart and soul like Ben Foster in 'The Program', without the Lance Armstrong slap in the face to professional sports. This last dance or waltz in the waves has the pay-off of an epic and emotional end back on land that feels like a birth between mother and child, in such a poignant and powerful play on a metaphor, that was nothing but the actual real thing we witnessed on the rise. And wait behind after the credits like these wonder women were 'The Marvels' for some real-world footage that will become fond favourite moments in this movie as you will believe that Diana Nyad and her close friend and coach Bonnie Stoll could have played themselves, they have so much character and charisma. But who better than Annette and Jodie, as the greats with oceans of movies under their board short's drawstring belt, belt out two of their most powerful performances on screen yet? Not to mention the scruffy Spike of Rhys Ifans playing the late John Bartlett to form a big-three like Voltron under the sea. His best since he tried to turn everyone in New York into a lizard.

Chin and Vasarhelyi have documented many movies before their big-screen feature by way of Netflix debut. You saw them 'Free Solo' in 2018 with an Academy Award for the unassisted Yosemite climb up the El Capitan. The matrimony directors are married to the idea of against the odds, real life adventurers who don't need any protection to harness their dreams. Benning's bracing Nyad is the definition of that defiance. The will of this unbending, never broken woman will stay with you, even if you think those closest to her will bolt, like the lightning likelihood that this swimmer will make it through this surf unscathed, let alone alive. Some may find Nyad and Annette's amazing accented depiction a tad too much. But that's how you achieve accomplishments and awards. But this free spirit is anything but a solo project just like its direction. Fostering her best role since 'The Brave One' vigilante alongside Terence Howard, 'The Silence Of The Lambs' very own Jodie is showing she has another great turn in her back pocket, backing up the best like when she directed Julia Roberts for George Clooney's 'Money Monster'. Babe, she's the best. She's never been any less. The striving scenes where they fight and reunite will stir the emotional echoes of your fondest friendships. Reaching new depths like their underwater muses up s###'s creek they don't need a paddle. Not when they can look each other in the eye and say, I got you babe. Share the love. And the legacy of legend that lasts longer than any great lengths. See it for yourselves and the ones you keep as close as water on skin. This tide and time comes in and touches you. Lap it up. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Further Filming: 'All Is Lost', 'Battle Of The Sexes', 'Free Solo'.