Netflix film “Nyad”, which was released on last Friday, is a standard biopic based on one extraordinary real-life story. While it is often fascinating to observe how persistently its real-life heroine tries again and again, the movie later becomes rather repetitive to my little disappointment, and it is fortunate that it remains anchored well by the charismatic presence of its two ever-reliable lead actresses.

Annette Bening, who has been one of the most gracefully aged actresses in Hollywood during last two decades, plays Diana Nyad, an American long-distance swimmer who was once quite famous for her several notable swimming records during the 1970-80s as shown from a series of archival footage clips. Shortly after her disastrous attempt to swim from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida in 1978, Nyad retired from her professional swimming career, and we see how she has comfortably spent her retirement period along with her best friend Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster) in 2010, but then she cannot help but feel dissatisfied as reflecting more on whether she will just live like this for the rest of her life.

Eventually, Nyad decides to do swimming again. At first, it is simply a rather long exercise at a local swimming pool, but she became more confident as finding that she is still a fairly good swimmer with enough stamina despite being over 60, and that leads her to one very risky idea. She is going to try again on swimming from Havana to Key West just like she did many years ago, and Stoll agrees to help and support her as much as she can even though she has some skepticism about her best friend’s ambitious goal.

After checking out her current skill and ability as a long-distance swimmer in Mexico, Nyad becomes more determined to accomplish her goal, and Stoll recruits several good experts who will assist them. One of these people is a well-experienced navigator named John Bartlett (Rhys Ifans), and his first meeting with Nyad does not go that well to say the least, but he is eventually persuade to join the team by Stoll as discerning more of Nyad’s strong determination.

When Nyad and others subsequently come to Havana in 2011, things look promising at first, but, as Bartlett and Stoll already worried, there are many obstacles besides that long distance between Havana and Key West, which is more than 100 miles (160 km). The swimming route is often riddled with strong currents which will definitely test Nyad’s physical strength in one way or another, and there are also many other dangers including sharks and jellyfishes. In addition, she needs to be constantly monitored and supported by her crew members, who certainly should focus on her condition minute by minute just in case.

The screenplay by Julia Cox, which is based on Nyad’s autobiography “Find a Way”, has some fun with how Nyad and her crew members prepare for Nyad’s ambitious long-distance swimming step by step. For avoiding those sharks, she hires a couple of divers who have a special electronic equipment to repel sharks, and she also approaches to a jellyfish expert later in the story. At one point early in the film, she explains to a bunch of curious kids a bit about how arduous her long-distance swimming can be, and I must say that I was a little disappointed that the movie does not delve that much into a little but important matter involved with excrement.

When the story subsequently moves onto Nyad’s first attempt, directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, who previously won an Oscar for their documentary film “Free Solo” (2018), and their crew members including cinematographer Claudio Miranda do not disappoint us at all as filling the screen with a considerable amount of realism and verisimilitude as required. You can really feel how daring and exhausting Nyad’s attempt really is, and Benning is utterly convincing in her committed acting as her character strenuously copes with one obstacle after another before eventually failing to everyone’s disappointment.

Nevertheless, Nyad is not daunted at all as subsequently trying again and again, and that is where the movie becomes less interesting than before. As zealously trying more to achieve her goal, Nyad becomes rather distant to not only others around her but also us, so we come to observe her subsequent attempts from the distance. In case of a series of flashback scenes from her past, these scenes feel mostly perfunctory without much depth, and the movie only scratches the surface of Nyad’s adolescent sexual trauma associated with her swimming coach.

At least, the movie works whenever it focuses on the long and complex relationship between Nyad and Stoll, and Bening and her co-star Jodie Foster, whose wrinkled face is as natural as Bening’s, shine as their characters often push and pull each other throughout the film. While the other main cast members of the film are mostly stuck with their thin supporting roles, Rhys Ifans sometimes steals the show from Benning and Foster as their no-nonsense navigator, and he has a little touching scene when his character confides to Stoll on why he stands by Nyad as much as Stoll.

On the whole, “Nyad” could be more improved in several aspects, and you also may be bothered by its several historical inaccuracies, but it is mostly watchable thanks to not only its directors’ competent direction but also Bening and Foster’s solid performances. Despite being over 60 at present, these two great actresses do not lose any of their talent or presence yet, and I can only hope that they keep going for whatever may come next in their respective acting careers.