Always love your movie reviews even though they make my IMDb watchlist interminable.
Interestingly, when I saw/chatted with Diana Nyad a few years ago at Live Wire, I was utterly delighted - and I’m about the furthest creature from athletics and/or water [that isn’t for bathing]. I was indifferent about the movie but now will see for the brilliant normalcy of Foster. :)
I'm blown away that it was reviewed as such an "inspiring" movie by so many. I watched it with a few other swimmers, pool and open water, one who trained for the English Channel and we were cringing the entire time. But we didn't come at it with any objectivity because Nyad's rep is complicated and I went to a talk she gave some years ago and felt completely unmoved. So thanks for laying it down how you saw it.
The filmmakers made Nyad into a dick so they could say (to paraphrase), "We don’t shy away from showing that she's a dick.” In fact, they entirely missed the real Diana Nyad and everything that makes her fascinating. She's a compulsive liar, con artist, and likely sociopath. She's marathon swimming's version of George Santos.
Thank you for that, that's some great writing about that movie, which has really nothing to show except for the two aforementioned characters. The portrayal of Bonnie is indeed no less the genius for all the reasons you wrote there (but Annette Bening also really does an amazing job I think). Everything else really should have stayed in the editing room, alongside Kevin Costner's body in The Big Chill
Always love your movie reviews even though they make my IMDb watchlist interminable.
Interestingly, when I saw/chatted with Diana Nyad a few years ago at Live Wire, I was utterly delighted - and I’m about the furthest creature from athletics and/or water [that isn’t for bathing]. I was indifferent about the movie but now will see for the brilliant normalcy of Foster. :)
I'm blown away that it was reviewed as such an "inspiring" movie by so many. I watched it with a few other swimmers, pool and open water, one who trained for the English Channel and we were cringing the entire time. But we didn't come at it with any objectivity because Nyad's rep is complicated and I went to a talk she gave some years ago and felt completely unmoved. So thanks for laying it down how you saw it.
Just ran into this review. A couple of things:
The filmmakers made Nyad into a dick so they could say (to paraphrase), "We don’t shy away from showing that she's a dick.” In fact, they entirely missed the real Diana Nyad and everything that makes her fascinating. She's a compulsive liar, con artist, and likely sociopath. She's marathon swimming's version of George Santos.
In particular, see her Holocaust survivor lie: https://nyadfactcheck.com/details_holocaust.html.
Like any good serial liar, she lies about *everything* (see nyadfactcheck.com), including things I'm not supposed to say she lies about:
https://nyadfactcheck.com/documents/summaries/nyad-vs-nyad-abuse.pdf
https://nyadfactcheck.com/documents/summaries/nyad-coming-out.pdf
Thank you for that, that's some great writing about that movie, which has really nothing to show except for the two aforementioned characters. The portrayal of Bonnie is indeed no less the genius for all the reasons you wrote there (but Annette Bening also really does an amazing job I think). Everything else really should have stayed in the editing room, alongside Kevin Costner's body in The Big Chill