September 28, 2023
Meghan O'Toole
Netflix film ‘Nyad’ documents alum’s swimming feat
Diana Nyad ’73 received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the College in 2015.
The upcoming Netflix film Nyad starring Annette Benning and Jodie Foster is making a splash with positive reviews ahead of its release.
The film narrativizes Diana Nyad ’73’s historic 2013 swim between Cuba and Florida. Nyad was the first person to complete this swim without a shark cage.
It should come as no surprise that in addition to being the Commencement class speaker in 1973, Nyad was an active athlete on campus. On top of competing on the swim team, Nyad was also on the College’s unbeaten varsity tennis team.
Nyad’s place in the Forester Athletic Hall of Fame has been cemented by her marathon-swimming career. She first established an international following in 1975 by completing a swim around Manhattan Island. In 1979, Nyad became the first person to swim the 102.5-mile stretch from the Bahamas to the Florida coast—more than two days of non-stop swimming.
The film focuses on Nyad’s determination to swim the 110 miles between Havana and Key West after two previous attempts. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the directors behind Free Solo (2018), pivoted to fact-based narrative storytelling for Nyad.
“In a performance that feels every bit as committed as the athlete she’s depicting, Annette Bening plays a woman who braved storms, being stung by box jellyfish and even a shark attack to reach her goal,” Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson wrote in a review.
Nyad is set for a limited theatrical release on October 20 in the US and will stream on Netflix from November 3.