Nyad

Great cinematic sports dramas seldom come along and one that can grip an audience like a thriller is even rarer. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin's Nyad paints an unflinching portrait of competitive swimmer Diana Nyad, detailing her steely resolve and later life return to the sea. Annette Bening excels as the titular sports monolith, yet we can't take our eyes off best friend and coach Bonnie Stoll, played by Jodie Foster.    

Happy New Year and welcome back to our fortnightly film dispatches. Did you miss us? Binge watching movies - before it was named as such - has always been a huge part of the holidays for our family. From awaiting the big Christmas Day movie as a kid in the '80s - Star Wars, Raiders, Mary Poppins - to getting the Radio Times as a young teenager and programming our video player to record anything I wasn't supposed to be watching - Alien, Trading Places, Risky Business - any spare moment over the holidays was and still is spent devouring movies.  

Having missed Nyad during its short cinema release, we settled down to watch it at home and were gripped. Annette Bening's central performance is towering and deserving of lead awards attention. What came as a surprise, although likely foreseen by many, was that there was room for Jodie Foster's riveting supporting turn as Nyad's friend and coach Bonnie Stoll. Coming up for air, we were spun off into a home curated Jodie Foster season, featuring characters filled with the nervous grit and pragmatism that has become her stock in trade.     

Nyad  

In a performance fusing two disparate but connected parts of a persona, Annette Bening is Nyad. On land, she is filled with nervous energy which, when unused, often turns to vinegar. In the water Nyad is powerfully all-focus. Throughout her 110-mile swim from Cuba to Florida, amidst exhaustion and delirium, Bening's Nyad makes sense as a divine creature of the sea, born from her frustrated, landlocked alter-ego. Bening readily embodies the competitor returning for one last shot at the title, a glory usually reserved for male stars and male stories.

Jodie Foster's Stoll is the architect of her best friend's sporting vision, aiding the athlete in putting her prowess into practice. Resonant of Ian Holm's Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire (1981), Jonah Hill's Peter Brand in Moneyball (2011) or Burgess Meredith's Mickey in the Rocky movies (1976-1990), Stoll plays a supporting role but one utterly integral to the success of the protagonist - the lead and the story simply cannot function without them. Stoll, a world-class athlete, racquetball player and entrepreneur in her own right, is far from meagre.

Yet these classic sports stories rendered for the screen - and based largely (bar Rocky) on true events - are all about men. Where are the women mentors and coaches in Hollywood films? Gabriel Union's driven team leader Isis in Bring It On (2000) stands out but it is further into action and drama that the matriarchal and sororal big hitters begin to emerge. Think Judi Dench's M - head honcho, guardian and castigator across eight Bond movies - (1996 -2015) or Michelle Yeoh's fierce warrior guardian Yu Shu Lien in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000).  

In Nyad, Diana overcomes sexism, ageism, sexual abuse, extreme weather and herself to triumph at an age when most people are kicking back. As with many sports dramas, Nyad has its subtext wrote large and it even becomes part of the main plot as she and Stoll fight to keep their underfunded and overcommitted swim plans from sinking. That deep rooted perseverance and poise could describe Foster in any role. There never appears to be a performance that comes about by accident, it is all embedded in the craft of one of this generation’s top actors.

1970s and 1980s

Foster has regularly gravitated toward projects that eschew the unspoken rules of Hollywood which often keep female actors in less significant roles. Avoiding parts that can be a plot device on the male hero's journey, Foster cemented an early bent toward more difficult, mercurial and even controversial characters. Two key performances in 1976 saw her bring immeasurable depth - aged only 13 - to Iris, the teenage sex worker in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, and tough gun-moll Tallulah in Alan Parker's prohibition era kids musical Bugsy Malone.  

Further '70s roles saw Foster proving her comic chops in body swap comedy Freaky Friday (1976) and UK set con caper Candleshoe (1977) whilst emerging as by far the best thing from mediocre murder mystery The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976). The 1980s saw Foster take on meatier dramatic roles, appearing alongside Rob Lowe in an uneven and oddly homely adaptation of John Irving's best seller The Hotel New Hampshire (1984) then scene stealing in director Adrienne Lynne's gritty debut Foxes (1980), soundtracked by Giorgio Moroder. 

Yet it would be her searing portrayal of rape victim Sarah Tobias in Jonathan Kaplan's The Accused (1988) where Foster really began to leave a lasting mark. Working alongside Kelly McGillis - as Tobias's attorney Katheryn Murphy, Foster was not considered a big enough box office star to front the movie despite many A-listers at the time passing on the part. Foster saw the gritty, harrowing and controversial project as a last shot at revitalising her flagging, post-Yale film career, winning her first Academy Award for Best Actress in the process.

 1990s

Following the critical and commercial success of The Accused, Foster's star was in ascendency leading to high profile roles as working class mother Dede Tate in Little Man Tate (1991) - her directorial debut; Tennessee widow Laurel in Jon Amiel's Reconstruction era love story Sommersby (1993) opposite Richard Gere; Old West con artist Annabelle Bransford alongside Mel Gibson and James Garner in Richard Donner's action comedy Maverick (1994); and SETI scientist Dr Ellie Arroway in Robert Zemeckis's sci-fi picture Contact (1997) with Angela Bassett. 

As with the 1980s, there would be just one role that defined Jodie Foster's work in the 1990s: her Academy Award winning turn as FBI Trainee Clarice Starling in Jonathan Demme's macabre mainstream masterwork The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Based on Thomas Harris's best-selling novel, Demme's film is one of only three pictures - alongside Frank Capra's It Happened One Night and Miloš Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest -to win the coveted top five Oscars - picture, director, screenplay, actor (Anthony Hopkins) and actress (Foster).

Whilst Demme's picture courted controversy over its depiction of transgender characters, Tak Fujimoto's cinematography helps it remain progressive. Much of the film is shot from Starling's perspective, including a cleverly lowered eye line to represent her diminutive height, as she attempts to operate in a man's world. Starling is both dismissed and coveted by male colleagues and yet is ultimately the only one who can get the job done. Foster's Starling is whip-smart, tough, capable and yet has a vulnerability that makes her all the more relatable.  

2000s and Beyond

Hopkins's Hannibal Lecter captured the zeitgeist with the release and subsequent success of The Silence of the Lambs, but it is Foster's daring female cadet Starling that endures. Foster's roles across the 21st century have maintained that sense of outright and unflagging capability including Manhattan power broker Madeleine White in Spike Lee's heist drama Inside Man (2006); radio host turned vigilante Erica Bain in Neil Jordan's The Brave One (2007); and Defence Secretary Jessica Delacourt in Neill Blomkamp's dystopic sci-fi actioner Elysium (2013).

The Beaver (2011) saw Foster back behind the camera and reunited with a diminished Mel Gibson, but a critical mauling and poor box office performance has seen it consigned to history. Foster's collaboration with director David Fincher on Panic Room (2002) brought out the best in both parties. Foster stepped in during shooting to replace an injured Nicole Kidman, bringing an irony and rawness to tough divorcee Meg Altman, fighting off and outsmarting home invaders to protect her daughter within Fincher's darkly inventive, single location thriller.

Foster continues to innovate whether directing episodes of Orange is the New Black and Black Mirror or portraying outspoken Police Chief Liz Danvers in True Detective: Night Country. A contemporary of Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver, Foster is one of the greatest actors of her generation. With shrewd project choices and a grounded believability, she remains not only a fan favourite but has served as a guiding light for another generation of outstanding female actors including Kate Winslet, Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Addams.     

Nyad had a limited release into UK & Irish cinemas on 20 October and streams exclusively on Netflix from 3 November. 

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