I hesitated to watch Nyad. How interesting can they possibly make swimming a lot? Plus I skipped that recent Netflix free diving documentary proving my whole theory: I must not like water sports (ahem). But the pull of Jody Foster and Annette Benning – plus the real-life controversy – finally pulled me under.

Nyad is about a professional swimmer who, at 60, makes her fourth (and fifth) attempt to swim from Cuba to Key West… 103 miles. She does so with ample guidance of a crew but she can never get physical assistance (beyond water and nutrients through a tube… yummy… put that on a box of Wheaties). I haven’t been in a swimming pool much less the ocean in over a decade and I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

And Annette Benning as our swimming fool looks exhausted. That might be my take-away from the film… how willing she was to look like total hell during the swim. I can’t imagine what drives a person that hard.

Thankfully the whole movie isn’t swimming. There’s plenty of planning and hiring of a crew, flashbacks to younger days, and general comradery with her best friend and coach (played by Foster). So the movie switches it up enough as a solid drama in between the swimmy bits.

The movie is completely competent and dramatic… but I’ll admit going in rolling my eyes at the expected inspirational music that was bound to play in the final moments. And when the inspiration music hits in the final moments and a crowd of cheering onlookers appears and she takes her final shaky steps out of the drink… yeah, my eyes were doing something other than rolling.

So it’s a good, inspiration movie… and hopefully it’s all true (there are doubters). Benning killed it and Foster helped in the murder. It’s a good sports flick (despite all that swimming).

Score: 81