Telluride Film Festival: Annette Bening and Jodie Foster dive into the awards race with ‘Nyad’

Telluride Film Festival attendees were treated to an honest-to-goodness crowdpleaser on Friday night at the Werner Herzog Theatre in the form of “Nyad.” The feature directing debut from “Free Solo” Oscar winners Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin had the packed audience literally cheering before its credits rolled, an impressive show of support for the filmmakers and distributor Netflix. 

Described by Netflix as the “remarkable true story” of long-distance swimmer, sportscaster, author, and motivational speaker Diana Nyad, the film focuses on Nyad’s many attempts to swim from Cuba to Key West, Florida – a feat she finally accomplished in 2013 at the age of 64. Four-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening stars as the prickly and controversial Nyad with two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster playing her steadfast coach, Bonnie Stoll – and the film, adapted from Nyad’s memoir by Julia Cox, gives both actors plenty of strong material with which to work. Needless to say, it didn’t take very long for awards buzz to emanate from the Werner Herzog. 

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“Bening’s warts-and-all portrait will be a compelling, undeniably central part of that conversation,” Vanity Fair staff writer David Canfield wrote on Friday evening. “Her noted history of many Oscar nods without a win rather neatly matches the film’s theme of never giving up, and Bening’s intensive preparation—and resulting physical transformation—only adds to that resonance.”

Bening is a four-time nominee and three-time Best Actress contender. (Her best shot to win was at the 2000 ceremony, where her “American Beauty” performance was bested by Hilary Swank in “Boys Don’t Cry,” and she was last nominated at the 2011 Oscars ceremony for “The Kids Are All Right.”) But “Nyad” arguably represents her most serious opportunity for awards recognition in some time due to its physical demands and the film’s message of perseverance in the face of age. Numerous times in the film, Nyad argues that society would rather see her die than try to achieve her dreams, and the doubts of those naysayers play a large part in powering her drive to find success. For Bening, who recently turned 65, playing Nyad required a similar resolve and endurance, the filmmakers have said. “She wouldn’t take the role unless she was prepared to do the work,” Vasarhelyi said of Bening in a prior interview with Vanity Fair. “That was daunting to her. She knew herself that she would have to learn to swim that way—and she wasn’t necessarily the best swimmer.”

“Annette faced all the hardest challenges. Swimming in the water for hours and hours, stomaching salt water, fluctuating body temperatures, wearing that weird silicone mask, long hours in every weather condition, day and night—and all of it in a bathing suit,” Foster previously told the legacy publication. “That’s my worst nightmare.”

But while the film is largely a showcase for Bening and Foster, they aren’t alone in the cast. Rhys Ifans is particularly affecting as navigator John Bartlett and Anna Harriette Pittman is a standout as a teenage Diana. Other notable crafts contributors who warrant some mention include “Top Gun: Maverick” cinematographer and Oscar winner Claudio Miranda and the two-time Oscar-winning composer Alexandre Desplat. If the film takes off – or at least plays the way it did at Telluride on Friday night – “Nyad” could also find itself as a darkhorse contender for Best Picture.

Some other reactions from the “Nyad” premiere are below:

“Nyad” will debut in theaters on October 20 before it hits Netflix on November 3.

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