Tech / Technology

‘The Buccaneers’ review: A gloriously brash period drama for ‘Bridgerton’ fans

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Based on Edith Wharton’s final novel, AppleTV+’s “The Buccaneers” is a 19th century romance drama following five American ladies drawn to England.
Five women, one in a wedding dress, four in green bridesmaids dresses, cheers champagne.

If you like your period dramas with spirited heroines who swig champagne, sweeping coastal shots of brooding Dukes, and lavish ball scenes where secrets abound, you’ll love The Buccaneers.

Based on Edith Wharton’s final novel, the eight-episode AppleTV+ series is a 19th century romance drama following five young American ladies drawn to England after one of their high society weddings to an English lord. Arriving in London, the newcomers are faced with deep judgment while bringing their own — and one hell of a cover of LCD Soundsystem’s “North American Scum” sets the title credit tone. But there’s also a landscape of eligible suitors on the horizon, including a forlorn Duke standing on a clifftop looking for a wife. Whatever will he do?

SEE ALSO:

’90s and ’00s period dramas are the most soothing form of escapism I’ve ever known

If you’re craving the next season of Bridgerton, The Buccaneers will satiate your thirst with diabolical narrative twists, simmering romantic leads, savvy performances, a killer modern soundtrack, and the lavish design of our society ball dreams.

What is The Buccaneers about?

Five women in 19th century garb stand together.

Conchita Closson (Alisha Boe), Mabel Elmsworth (Josie Totah), Nan St. George (Kristine Frøseth), Lizzy Elmsworth (Aubri Ibrag), and Jinny St. George (Imogen Waterhouse).
Credit: Apple TV+

Set in the upper echelons of society in 1870s New York and London, the series revolves around five young women on the cusp of “marriages, men, and parties” in deeply patriarchal 19th century society.

There’s protagonist Nan St. George (Kristine Frøseth), the headstrong best friend of the vivacious Conchita Closson (Alisha Boe), who is getting married for love to English Lord Richard Marable (Josh Dylan) — much to his parents’ chagrin back home. Conchita’s bridesmaids are Nan’s older sister Jinny St. George (Imogen Waterhouse), who holds the weight of family responsibility on her shoulders, as does the eldest of the Elmsworth family, Lizzy (Aubri Ibrag), who endures a traumatic experience at the hands of a powerful man. And her younger sister, Mabel Elmsworth (Josie Totah) has her own secrets in this heteronormative society.

SEE ALSO:

It’s time for ‘Bridgerton’ to say gay

Following Conchita’s appointment as Lady Marable, the group are invited to England to meet the Lord’s family: the deeply judgy Brightlingseas. Debuted into society at the Queen’s Ball, the bridesmaids are introduced to a world of suitors, delightful and otherwise, including the heinous Lord James Seadown (Barney Fishwick). But while the ladies are getting settled in, it becomes apparent that Conchita’s acceptance into English culture is more difficult and sinister than she’d imagined. Instead of helping his new wife, Richard laments, “Will she work in England, will she fit in?” 

Meanwhile Nan, seen as the most “unruly” unwed young woman of the group, is sent to the seaside of Cornwall to avoid “distraction” from her sister, Jinny. Here, she meets the roguish Theo (Guy Remmers) who she believes is an artist but is actually the Duke of Tintagel, “the greatest match in England”. But there’s already another who has caught Nan’s eye, his best friend, Guy Thwarte (Matthew Broome), whose closeness to Nan has meant she’s revealed a personal secret that could ruin her.

A young woman in a blue dress stands in front of two men in suits with a horse.

Nan St. George (Kristine Frøseth), the Duke of Tintagel (Guy Remmers), and Guy Thwarte (Matthew Broome).
Credit: Apple TV+

Feeling more Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette than Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice, The Buccaneers takes liberties to allow its broad spectrum of characters more modern behaviour in their dalliances — a subtle brush of the hand is not enough for this series.

The ladies of The Buccaneers are gloriously brash

“There are women and then there are wives.” It’s the core philosophy of most of the male characters and the older generations in The Buccaneers, but the series allows its core female characters room to scorn it — even Nan and Jinny’s mother, played to perfection by Christina Hendricks, hopes her daughters “will always be tall” and true to themselves. The series reveres the silliness, intelligence, wit, creativity, beauty, and power of women and girls within a society that puts them on a pedestal then closes them into a purely domestic life. But the series importantly doesn’t make them all staunchly open feminists. This is the 19th century, after all.

A young woman in 19th century dress lounges on a sofa.

“Girls are taught to believe that if a story isn’t a love story then it’s a tragedy and I had no interest in being involved with either one of those.”
Credit: Apple TV+

As the protagonist, Nan feels the most modern of the characters, openly rejecting what’s expected of her in a barefooted assuredness that even Elizabeth Bennet would envy. Within minutes of meeting Nan, she’s climbing down the facade of a building to rescue her best friend’s earring, then blustering through a meet-cute with undeniable self-confidence. “Girls are taught to believe that if a story isn’t a love story then it’s a tragedy and I had no interest in being involved with either one of those,” she says through voice over. But involved she becomes, with both Theo and Guy on the horizon, all while her own sense of identity is thrown into the air.

If “young ladies of refinement” are what this society requires, the American ladies rattle the more subdued, conservatism of their English counterparts — they stomp around and giggle, swig bubbly, and raise their voices above a whisper. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” Nan cackles to Conchita, currently drinking champagne on the toilet in her wedding dress. The script takes liberties with what would boot a young woman out of society — when Nan claps back at an English ball-goer for lambasting Americans as “outspoken and vulgar” she sparks the interest of the Duke instead of being kicked out. Conchita’s unchaperoned girls weekend in Runnymede sees the ladies going for a waterfall dip with her husband and his friends, which is as far away from Jane Austen’s distanced admiration as you can get. Much of the interactions between the characters happens unchaperoned with more physical contact than most 19th century novels — and it’s wildly welcome. 

The Buccaneers pits England vs America

At times, one could see the series as being distinctly anti-English, pro-American with modern sensibilities of self expression and feminism only allowed to the American characters. “Get used to an ocean of silence and swim about in it as well as you can,” Conchita warns her sisters on their arrival in England. “I haven’t drowned yet.”

A woman in elegant evening wear looks sad on the arm of a man in a suit looking concerned.

Lady Conchita Marable (Alisha Boe) and Lord Richard Marable (Josh Dylan).
Credit: Apple TV+

As her light threatens to be stamped out, Conchita becomes the embodiment of American defiance throughout the series, granted, something she’s privileged to do as a married woman in an influential family, but she’s also noticing a change in her husband since they left New York — he now expects the new Lady Marable to “be the wife” and “behave”. Hosting a girls weekend in Runnymede, Conchita pontificates about cultural differences: “Since when were we ever shy of a party? Girls, have you not noticed? We’re not them. We’re Americans. When did we ever care what people think of us? I mean, the English are so fascinated by their history. Well, we have a history of being fascinating. It’s time that they learn from us.”

Richard’s family is full of disdain for Conchita and her friends — “Before you know it there won’t be a family left in England without American poison in its veins,” scoffs Lord Brightlingsea. However, the series acknowledges that Conchita’s particular treatment is steeped in racism, not just English prejudice against Americans, and her character deeply struggles with this.

Unfortunately, one of the main issues I have with The Buccaneers is the general positioning of English women in the series as happily accepting of their restrictions, of “volunteering” to be dutiful and upholding patriarchal requirements of etiquette and behaviour. Though Conchita is allowed open laments over her frustration, Richard’s intentionally unwed sister Honoria Marable (Mia Threapleton) is not, though both women feel equally frustrated with their limitations, including Honoria’s closeted sexuality. “You’ve seen English girls. They just nod and obey and do embroidery,” says Conchita. “We’re like a whole other species.”

Two women playing croquet look at each other and smile.

Mabel Elmsworth (Josie Totah) and Honoria Marable (Mia Threapleton).
Credit: Apple TV+

It’s here the series also runs into problematic “not like other girls” territory, especially through the character of Nan, who quite literally says aloud, “I’m not one of those girls who gets in trouble and needs helping down from horses.” Jinny and Conchita also come to a head over what’s “proper” behaviour as a married woman, each throwing each other under the bus as “different”. Don’t get me wrong, I love The Buccaneers‘ representation of women and girls being exhausted and simply done with patriarchal bullshit, but it doesn’t feel great seeing it at the expense of other women like Jinny, whose responsibilities to their family see them sacrifice the freedom of expression and independent spirit Nan enjoys. 

The inescapable influence of Bridgerton

By no means the only period drama steaming up our screens in recent years but one of the most influential, Bridgerton‘s influence on contemporary 19th century romances cannot be understated — Shonda Rhimes’ series has defined the streaming era’s resurgence in pop music-fuelled balls, long courtships, and revisionist takes on the expectations of the time, particularly for women. 

Following similar modern takes like Persuasion, The Pursuit of Love, The Great, Sanditon, and more, The Buccaneers takes more than a few cues from Bridgerton, from the series’ conversations and representation of sex, but also its reliance on contemporary music, from Warpaint to Japanese Breakfast. In one particularly notable scene, Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers’ duet “Nothing New” whirls as the camera pans through young women in white ready to make their debut at the Queen’s Ball. It’s straight out of Bridgerton and it’s glorious. Coppola’s Marie Antoinette rings through the halls too, from the series set design filled with peacocks, pink-dyed poodles, gilded mirrors, and cornucopias of fresh flowers, to the frank conversations the series’ female characters have about sex, marriage, and female pleasure.

Notably, the series goes where we’d love for Bridgerton to go, introducing closeted queer characters Horonia and Mabel and the lack of options for lesbians in 19th century society beyond covert relationships.

Able to run where its predecessors paved the way, The Buccaneers is a lavish period drama that feels fresh and modern, with a fast-paced, twisting narrative, grandiose set and costume design, and enough chemistry to keep you guessing between matches. It’s a little Gossip Girl, a little Marie Antoinette, and a lot of Bridgerton, and it’s gloriously impolite society.

How to watch: The Buccaneers is now streaming episodes 1 to 3 on Apple TV+, with a new episode every Wednesday.

Tech / Technology

Black Friday Fitbit deals: Save on Sense 2 and more

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Fitbit models like the Luxe, Inspire 2, and Sense 2 are already on sale ahead of Black Friday 2023.
Three Fitbit watch models overlaid on a green and yellow background

Listen up, fitness folks: Despite the fact that we still have (almost) a solid month left before Black Friday 2023, top Fitbit models are already on sale at multiple retailers Check out our top picks below:

Best Fitbit deals for Black Friday 2023:
Our top pick

Fitbit Luxe

$79.95 at Amazon
(save $50)

The Fitbit Luxe fitness watch with a light-colored band, over a white background

Budget pick

Fitbit Inspire 2

$58.40 at Amazon
(save $21.55)

The Fitbit Inspire 2 with a black band, over a white background

Upgrade pick

Fitbit Sense 2

$198.04 at Amazon
(save $51.91)

The large-screened Fitbit Sense 2 watch over a white background

It’s beginning to look a lot like… Black Friday 2023, which means retailers from Amazon to Best Buy to Walmart are already dropping some satisfying savings on top products. If you’ve been wanting to invest in a high-quality Fitbit for a while (either as a self-care purchase or to treat your loved ones), but have been nervous about some of the models’ prices, today’s your lucky day.

If you treat holiday shopping just as seriously as you do your health, this might be a fine time to start checking people off the Christmas list by purchasing some of these top Fitbits currently on discount. Below are all the best Fitbits you can get on sale today — as a little “soft launch” into holiday sales.

Our top pick


The Fitbit Luxe fitness watch with a light-colored band, over a white background

Credit: Fitbit


Fitbit Luxe

$79.95 at Amazon (save $50)

Why we like it

The Fitbit Luxe fitness watch model is the perfect middle ground between a feature-packed Fitbit and one that looks slim/cute on your wrist. The watch provides fitness lovers with 24/7 heart rate trends, tells them how long they spend in “active zones” during workouts, monitors sleep, and even offers a lineup of stress management tools. With a free, six-month trial of Fitbit Premium, you can explore an even broader range of the Fitbit Luxe’s capabilities. What can be better than having a trusty little fitness pal that doubles as attention-grabbing eye candy?

Budget pick


The Fitbit Inspire 2 with a black band, over a white background

Credit: Fitbit


Fitbit Inspire 2

$58.40 at Amazon (save $21.55)

Why we like it

The Fitbit Inspire 2 proves that you don’t need to dish out more than $60 for a fitness watch that will check all the boxes. One of the cool features of this watch is the Daily Readiness Score, which tells you if you’re ready to seize the day with exercise or should instead take it easy. The watch also tracks your daily activity (steps, distance, calories burned, etc.) and your nightly activity both (time spent in light, deep, and REM sleep). As an added bonus, the tracker is swim-friendly — something all the water signs out there are sure to appreciate.

Upgrade pick


The large-screened Fitbit Sense 2 watch over a white background

Credit: Fitbit


Fitbit Sense 2

$198.04 at Amazon (save $51.91)

Why we like it

Closely resembling an Apple Watch, the Fitbit Sense 2 is the brand’s most advanced watch yet. You’ll see that reflected in all it can do for you — including tracking things like altitude changes, blood oxygen levels, ECG, duration of sleep stages, skin temperature, and beyond. With over 40 exercise modes, this watch is ideal for runners, skiers, stand-up paddleboarders, and everyone in between. Plus, the Sense 2 basically functions like a phone. You can take calls on it, use Google Maps, tap-to-pay, receive Gmail notifications…you get the point. Score this fantastic buy today, while it’s $50 off.

More early Black Friday Fitbit deals

Tech / Technology

Meet the people spending $4,000 to travel with their favorite creators

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How creator-led trips through Trova Trip work, and why YouTubers and their fans go on them.
An illustrated group of people shaded in blue with woman posing in color in the center with a dollar sign.

A YouTube vlog shows a group of twentysomething women on a food tour of Mykonos, Greece. They eat sugar-coated kourabiedes cookies, take shots of ouzo, walk the narrow streets ducking into eateries, and share laughs over a charcuterie board. But this is not your average girls trip. 

The women in the video paid to travel to Greece with their favorite YouTuber, Maddie Dragsbaek. Dragsbaek posted the video, titled “I traveled to Italy and Greece with 40 of my subscribers.” She’s one of a growing number of creators who have made traveling with their audiences into a lucrative endeavor of its own.

While you once might have enviously watched an influencer’s vlog or swiped through photos of her sponsored trip and then jealously planned your own (which would never quite compare), now you can pay for a trip together. The experience lives both on her feed and yours, and in your memories. 

SEE ALSO:

Instagram took away a major source of income for its creators, and they’re not happy about it

For creators, it’s “a no-brainer”

Dragsbaek’s trip is one of 500 creator-led trips operated by travel company Trova Trip this year — nearly 200 more than in 2022. Founded in 2017 by Lauren Schneider, Trova Trip is a three-sided marketplace that helps connect creators with travel operators in more than 40 countries. Creators, called hosts by Trova Trip, sell trips to their audiences through the platform for an average of $2,000 to $4,000, though the prices go up to $12,000 for an Antartica trip, airfare not included.

To host a travel experience through Trova Trip, a creator first sends out a survey to their audience. They are eligible to host a trip if their community demonstrates interest — for Trova Trip, that means at least 50 responses from adults with budgets of over $2,000 for the experience. Currently, Trova Trip is the only company specializing in creator-led travel, although more traditional creator-led travel, like yoga retreats, have existed for a while, and some creators have planned one-off trips via other companies. “[Based on the survey results] our platform provides recommendations of itineraries that match their audience interests. We have a wide range of experiences, from backpacking in Patagonia to practicing yoga in Bali to eating food in Japan,” explained Schneider. 

Once the creator picks an itinerary, their request must be approved by the local operator of the trip. Then Trova Trip provides the operating cost, and the creator sets the price and sells it to their audience.

The trips range in price depending on location, with the final price set by the creator. “We trust our creators to decide their earnings based on what they believe is best for them and their community,” Lauren Schneider, the founder of Trova Trip, explained to Mashable. “On average, they’re taking about 20 percent of the total trip price.” 60 percent goes to the trip operators, and Trova Trip takes the remaining cut. 

According to Trova Trip, around 700 creators have hosted trips so far. Hosts have spanned from Love Is Blind‘s Kwame and Chelsea to Cassie and Danielle of the National Park After Dark podcast (they’re the ones going to Antarctica). Hosts have access to 150+ itineraries. And the hosts are just that; the trip operators provide tour guides and manage on-the-ground logistics.

When Trova Trip reached out to Dragsbaek to gauge her interest in hosting a trip for her 233,000 subscribers, saying yes was a no-brainer, Dragsbaek told Mashable. “It’s such a strange and unique opportunity that I had to do it,” she continued. “Not only was I getting to meet the people that support my content face to face, but I was able to meet them in a meaningful way by spending a good amount of time traveling together.”

Dragsbaek’s 7-day Greece trip cost a whopping $3,350. The price included a double room with another trip attendee, six breakfasts, two dinners, shuttle service to and from Athens airport, transport to and from Mykonos, and planned activities like a visit to the Parthenon. It did not include attendees’ air fare. 

Despite the steep price, Dragsbaek’s fans were eager to attend.

“I can’t not do this”

In 2020, during a spell of quarantine-induced boredom, Amanda Layne Miller turned to YouTube. An outfit video from Dragsbaek popped up on her homepage and she clicked. “Literally the algorithm just fed it to me,” Miller told Mashable. “I started binging literally every single one of her videos. I felt like I had a lot in common with her.”

Miller found Dragsbaek authentic, conversational, and funny. “The way that she speaks is so personal that I got to know her through her opinions and what she loves,” she explained. 

So when Miller caught wind that Dragsbaek was hosting a trip to Greece in June 2023 for up to 20 of her subscribers, Miller jumped at the opportunity. “I thought, I’ve always wanted to go to Greece. It’s with one of my favorite YouTubers. I think we’d get along, and I want to be friends with her. I can’t not do this,” she said. 

Similarly, several years ago Cari Cakes, an American creator living in Seoul, was recommended on YouTube to Katie Giordano, a 25-year-old media worker in Hong Kong. Giordano became a fan of both Cakes’s travel content and book tube. “Her whole demeanor is so relaxing. I don’t know if that’s weird, but she’s just very calm and realistic,” Giordano explained to Mashable. This past May, Giordano went on Cakes’s trip to Tokyo. “Everybody was a little bit like Cari in a certain way,” she said. “They were all really nice, accepting, and eager and open-minded. Cari attracts niceness, because that is her own aura.”

The inevitable complications when creators meet their fans

These trips seem like a recipe for an Ingrid Goes West situation — a group of people all hoping to become friends with someone they feel like they already know from watching them online for years. But for Dragsbaek, the unique relationship broke down walls between attendees and her. “It’s hard to even describe when you’re talking to someone, and [they’re] a stranger, but you immediately feel understood by them. And it’s because they already know so much about you,” she explained.

While there is the possibility for immediate connection between creator and traveler, creators, who lead and profit from the trip with their followers, could easily act as though they are above the travelers. Followers, who have watched these creators often for years, may fall into overt fan-girling.

Morgan Yates, a 28-year-old lifestyle YouTuber in Los Angeles, California, who has hosted three trips — two through Trova Trip — dealt with overzealous travelers. One made it clear she knew basically every detail of Yates’s life. Others were “clingy.” “It becomes a difficult situation because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by trying to get away from them, but at times I’ve felt a bit conflicted and frustrated when those people are only making an effort to spend time with me and not get to know everyone else,” she told Mashable.

There are some safety mechanisms in place to help keep overtly dangerous fans off trips. “Hosts have the ability to review or reject a traveler, they control how and who the trip is marketed to, so they could list it in the marketplace or they can only send it to vetted folks,” said Amy Dunn, communications lead at Trova Trip. 

The first trip Yates hosted was through Contiki, a tour company she’d previously been a traveler with, and due to their privacy policy, Yates wasn’t allowed to access any info on the travelers on her trip ahead of time which made her “super nervous,” despite it ending up being a “great group.”

An exercise in managing expectations

Despite going on these trips to meet their favorite creator, travelers are expected to behave as travelers might on any group trip. But this can be a challenge.

“It’s easier to develop a parasocial relationship with a YouTuber, because their art is literally just them,” said Miller. She acknowledged the potential for weird behavior and for travelers to overwhelm Dragsbaek because everyone wanted to develop a connection with her. “I was excited to get to know her as a person and actually have a relationship with her further than just audience and subject.”

SEE ALSO:

What are parasocial relationships?

You might imagine that as soon as Dragsbaek left the room, all the travelers would immediately begin discussing her and comparing her to her videos. But it wasn’t quite like that. The travelers all being huge fans of Dragsbaek was “the elephant in the room” until the middle of the week, said Miller. “Someone finally said, ‘I feel like, we all came here to like become friends with Maddie to a certain extent.”

When Giordano arrived in Tokyo and met Cakes, she felt like she was meeting a celebrity. “When I first met her, I said, ‘You look like a woodland fairy.’ She’s got the beautiful red hair. She’s literally so gorgeous,” said Giordano. “The first few days I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s so cool.’ But it toned down throughout the trip.”

While Giordano was struck by Cakes’s real-life beauty — and by how slow Cakes talks, because Giordano watches YouTube at double speed — the person she met was exactly how she thought she would be. “I got a good idea of how she was as a person, because she’s very open and honest on her YouTube channel,” explained Giordano. 

Travelers’ expectations aren’t just something they have to manage. The creators are hyper-aware of whether or not they are living up to the persona in their content. Jade Fox, a 32-year-old lifestyle creator YouTuber in Los Angeles, California, worried about her ability to meet expectations ahead of the trip she hosted to Bali with her best friend and fellow creator Arrows this summer. “I’m used to the process of capturing myself exactly the way I want to. People are used to seeing a very curated, edited version of me,” Fox told Mashable. “I was nervous about disappointing folks.”

Yates faces similar anxieties on her trips. “I almost have imposter syndrome going into these trips. I know I’m not any cooler or more special than anyone else there. My fear is always that I’m not living up to what people expected me to be like,” she explained.

“It felt like summer camp”

All the hours of anecdotes Miller and Giordano watched led them to fly across the world to meet their favorite YouTubers, which can make for a lot of pressure. But creators have the capacity to create a community that reflects the content they’ve put out there, and that can lead to incredibly meaningful trips. 

“I was nervous if that [connection between creator and audience] was going to exist in real life, as it does in the comment section. When we met in person it was almost as if we had all already known each other for years,” said Fox. “I’m a Black queer woman. Arrows is a transmasculine, nonbinary queer person, and our audience is just different iterations of that.” 

The group’s shared identities provided a touch point for connection. “We are a giant pack of Black people; some of us are gender-fluid. And we’re going into a city where we don’t know how we’re going to be perceived, we don’t know what’s going to happen. A lot of us had never been out of the country before,” explained Fox. “That was another way that we were all able to protect each other, because we all know what violence looks like toward people who have experiences like ours.”

Fox described the trip as “spiritual,” “a fully immersive experience,” and “kismet.” By the end, travelers were getting tattoos to commemorate the experience and changing their flights home to spend more time with each other. The most magical moment for Fox came on their chill day by the pool when one of the travelers taught her how to swim. “It was this big Disney Channel moment. When I finished my first full lap, I lifted my head out of the water and everyone was just screaming and going crazy,” reminisced Fox. 

Miller also felt moved by the end of Dragsbaek’s trip. “The last night is when we’re all like, ‘We know each other really well’ and wishing it was the first day. It felt like summer camp,” said Miller. “I was like, ‘Whoa, like, I’m an adult. And I have not been in this type of environment since high school.'”

For some, it’s just another hustle

For creators with a smaller audience who might not be sought after for brand sponsorships, a Trova Trip venture can provide more money than a brand sponsorship. So, while Fox and Dragsbaek created meaningful connections with their audiences, there’s the potential from others to treat the travel game like a full-time hustle.

Lindsay Mukkadam, a 37-year-old based in Austin, Texas, who posts under the moniker “One Girl Wandering,” pivoted from being a solo travel creator to making her business about encouraging her audience to get out and travel by coming on one of her trips. Her Instagram bio labels her as “Your solo travel bff! Stop waiting for others and finally book the trip of your dreams,” and in this year alone, she’s hosted trips to Costa Rica, Iceland, Scotland, two to Japan, and two to the Amalfi Coast. By the end of the year she’ll host two trips to Egypt, and two to Christmas markets in Germany and Austria. A slew of her 2024 trips are already being promoted. 

Others, like Danah Clipa, @danahbananaa on TikTok, refuse to, as they see it, take advantage of their followers by making them pay to join them on travel adventures. In a since-deleted video, Clipa explained that she canceled her Trova Trip because it would be free for her at the expense of her followers. “If I’m inviting someone to travel out of the country with me,” said Clipa, “I want them to feel on the same level as me, because we are — we are the exact fucking same.” 

Tech / Technology

‘Nyad’ Review: An exciting drama buoyed by Annette Bening and Jodie Foster

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Netflix’s “Nyad,” starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster, hits familiar biopic beats but works nonetheless. Review.

Formulaic at first glance, the feel-good sports drama Nyad hits every beat you’d expect, but it nails some of them with enough precision that it becomes a rapturous experience. Co-directed by married couple Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (the Oscar-winning team behind the rock-climbing documentary Free Solo), it tells the real story of a renowned long-distance swimmer coming out of retirement, chronicling her herculean attempts — alongside her team of friends and experts — to push the limits of the human body and spirit by completing an arduous 80-hour swim from Cuba to Miami.

Buoyed by a stellar ensemble, the movie just about conquers its shortcomings in the story department. When Nyad isn’t distracted by biopic conventions, it’s a surprisingly effective procedural about a complicated endeavor, supported by lifelike, multidimensional performances that help it transcend its appearance as a run-of-the-mill “inspirational” Hollywood hagiography.

Unfortunately, when it drops the ball, its flaws are especially noticeable, as it becomes suddenly reliant on a traumatic backstory in ways that, at best, feel narratively misplaced. However, thanks to its unyielding focus on physical strain and suffering — it’s the aquatic Passion of the Christ — it maintains enough stakes and sporadic intensity to get by.

What is Nyad about?

Annette Bening in "Nyad."


Credit: Netflix

In August 1978, a 28-year-old Diana Nyad tried and failed to become the first woman to swim from Havana to Key West, a media spectacle the movie relives in its opening scenes using archival news footage. Most biopics relegate their real-life videos and photographs to their closing credits, but this introduction through the lens of reality helps draw a straight line between the younger version of Diana — who would go on to retire a year later — and the fictionalized version we follow who is in her early sixties, played by Annette Bening.

The curt, sour-faced Diana tends to keep most people at a distance, except for her best friend, Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster). The duo dated decades ago but have now become each other’s most important confidants. Bonnie also tries to play wing-woman to Diana, though given the former swimmer’s penchant for directing the flow of the conversation towards her past achievements, this seldom works out. Now 60, Diana drifts through life, unable to find a new purpose as she relives the glory days in the back of her mind — until it hits her. Cuba-to-Miami was the one mountain she was never able to climb. So now she’s going to try again.

Undeterred by every naysayer (including Bonnie, who eventually joins up as her personal trainer), Diana begins reacquainting herself with long-distance swims while planning for the event. Together, they attempt to rope in sponsors, lifeguards, health experts and, most importantly, a navigator to captain a small vessel alongside her as she swims, in order to keep her on course. Back in ’78, she first attempted the feat while swimming in a lengthy shark cage, but now she also wants to be first person to complete the route without one, which experts deem nearly impossible even for athletes at their physical peak.

The film does skirt around some of the real details of this achievement — major ones, like the fact that the route had in fact been completed once before, by Walter Poenisch in July of ’78 — and while movies shouldn’t necessarily be beholden to reality, there’s an iffiness surrounding this particular case. Julia Cox’s screenplay is based on Diana’s 2015 memoir Find a Way, but the athlete herself has proven to be a problematic source on occasion. There’s even an entire website dedicated to debunking and fact-checking her claims, though you wouldn’t clock any of this controversy from the movie, which, if anything, treats Diana as too honest (often gratingly so, to those around her).

At the very least, one has to wonder if the filmmakers didn’t leave valuable dramatic material on the table by not contrasting Diana’s late-in-life drive to complete the swim despite her naysayers with the fact that the real Diana had once smeared Poenisch, who was 64 at the time of his swim, for being too old to complete the route himself. (Poenisch is never mentioned in the film.) Despite Chin and Vasarhelyi’s background in documentary filmmaking, little in their approach to Nyad suggests a search for the truth beyond the confines of the script — the film’s chronology is presented objectively, its subject’s perspective never questioned — though as first-time feature filmmakers, it’s hard to imagine they’d have had much room to futz with Netflix’s vision for a straightforward, feel-good story. 

Regardless, even as a dramatization of true-ish events peppered with lies and embellishments, it proves effective in its portrayal of its central relationship. If there’s one thing Bonnie knows about her best friend, something she loves and hates about her in equal measure, it’s that she won’t take “no” for an answer. So, it’s off to the races, so to speak, as Diana attempts to defeat time, the elements, and the best version of herself from over 30 years ago.

Nyad is a tale of friendship told with great performances.

Annette Bening and Jodei Foster in "Nyad."


Credit: Netflix

While its title hints at one woman’s journey, Nyad is really a story about relationships. Diana is undoubtedly driven, but her unyielding focus lives somewhere between stubbornness and narcissism in a strange way that makes her magnetic. She butts heads constantly with Bonnie, and with her no-nonsense ship captain John Bartlett (Rhys Ifans), but her stern individualism is also responsible for bringing people together through a shared vision of the impossible, as though it were a tale of creative partnership.

As Diana, Bening is sharp-tongued in a way where you aren’t quite sure how self-aware she is. Does she not know that she comes off like a jerk, or does she just not have the time to care? Either way, her abrasiveness is almost always amusing, and it goes hand-in-hand with the tireless physical and emotional ambition that lures people into her orbit. With eyes that dart around the room, and a voice that seems to boom from somewhere deep within her, as though each sentence were a bold proclamation, Bening’s impatient conception of Diana keeps the movie feeling quick and propulsive, even in its handful of languid moments.

Foster’s performance perfectly compliments Bening’s. As Bonnie, she likes to take a beat or two (or ten) before diving headfirst into Diana’s seemingly crazy schemes. With a combination of caution and enthusiasm, she both pulls Diana back from the many ledges on which she finds herself while also helping her push past her limitations, as though Diana were a proxy through whom Bonnie could vicariously live and transcend her own fears of aging and obsolescence. Together, the delightful lesbian duo make a platonic movie partnership for the ages, as they propel Nyad forward through its many scenes of planning, chit-chat, confrontations, and candid confessions of intimate fears.

Rounding out the leading cast is Ifans, whose weary but straight-shooting navigator John butts heads with Diana even more than Bonnie. Where Bonnie has a lifetime of tact in her arsenal, which she molds to Diana’s specific needs and idiosyncrasies, John is a newcomer to their dynamic, and he’s also tasked with the safety of his entire crew as they navigate stormy weather. He rises to meet Diana’s obstinance head-on because it’s a matter of life or death, in more ways than one. In especially stormy conditions, throwing in the towel is a life-saving decision, but pushing forward in the face of possible doom is, ironically, the most life-affirming thing he can do as a member of Diana’s team.

The film also has a key fourth performance, isolated from the aforementioned three, which stands out just as brightly: Anna Harriette Pittman as a teenage version of Diana, who appears in flashbacks. The young actress is tasked with emotionally delicate material, and she handles it with immense assuredness. But while these glimpses into the past are initially exacting, they end up scattered in a way that works against the entire film.

Nyad‘s filmmaking struggles (but ultimately works).

Annette Bening in "Nyad."


Credit: Netflix

Cox’s screenplay features an early flourish that Chin and Vasarhelyi bring to life with momentous passion and energy. When Diana is in the initial stages of blazing her new path, she steps back into a swimming pool for the first time in decades. With each stroke, Nyad flashes back to formative moments from Diana’s childhood, as opening credits appear across the screen. Not only is this an economic way to tell an entire backstory while framing Diana’s swim as a new beginning — the opening titles mark the official “start” of the film — but the act of swimming connects Diana to her past, and to a part of her identity from which she had perhaps closed herself off.

Were this a mere gimmick isolated to the opening credits, it would’ve swiftly served its purpose, but these flashbacks continue to reappear at inopportune moments, usually when Diana is in the water. On paper, the recurrence of these scenes seems to draw a connection between water and Diana’s past, but as memories, they don’t entirely make sense as a repeating facet of her journey.

For one thing, events where the teenage Diana experiences success have the golden haze of recollections, but this gilded texture doesn’t change in any meaningful way when the movie’s flashbacks begin to focus on traumatic experiences, like her sexual assault at the hands of her swim coach. Pittman shoulders the weight of this difficult subplot with a thoughtful depiction of self-doubt, but the way these flashbacks appear as the film goes on becomes increasingly arbitrary and mechanical. In the present, Diana will be focused on the task at hand, with little by way of Bening’s performance to suggest that these memories have much bearing on her in a given moment, and even less by way of the movie’s editing to create a fluid emotional connection between any two past and present scenes.

In fact, when this trauma from decades prior does finally rears its head, Diana convincingly asserts that it’s something she no longer thinks about, despite the movie framing it as an all-encompassing event that defines her. This denial is something that could, in theory, be called into question, as an armor Diana builds around herself, but the result is far too straightforward for such a reading. That this assault is an aspect of Diana’s life she’s written and spoken about at length seems reason enough to include it in the film, but it’s handled without the kind of craft and care that might’ve made it feel in tune with the rest of the film. 

It’s the center of a major disconnect between the filmmaking and writing that’s never resolved; everything from the editing to Bening’s performance suggests that Diana’s unyielding focus on her mission leaves little room for anyone else in the present, let alone a monster from her past. And yet, this element of her backstory prods constantly at the movie’s fabric, as a recurring reminder for the audience but seldom (if ever) a reminder for Diana herself. So, when she eventually claims she hasn’t thought about it in years, the movie itself gives us no reason to doubt her. It becomes a horror far too easily dismissed

As it happens, there’s no dearth of trauma or suffering in the present during Diana’s journey (which her story of assault ought to have either been tied to in some way, or dropped entirely). In fact, it’s during the most arduous hurdles along Diana’s swim that the movie takes on occasional abstract qualities, as though her delirium after several sleepless days in the water had somehow infected the camera too. It’s beautiful and dangerous, representative of both the powerful ocean and the film itself. Nyad breathes with an increasing vitality the closer Diana gets to the Florida coast, recalling the intensity the directing duo brought to their Thai cave rescue documentary The Rescue.

The camera never shies away from her cracked lips or inflamed skin when she’s spent hours in the seawater, and it doesn’t shy away from her wrinkles, either  — or Bonnie’s, for that matter. It’s a movie in which age is both obstacle and strength, and it allows Bening and Foster to play their ages gracefully, as actresses in their sixties. Whatever it struggles to say about bravery in the face of wounds from decades past, it manages to say tenfold about the way its characters choose to live now. Nyad builds to exuberant emotional crescendos that feel straight out of the schmaltzy Hollywood biopic playbook, but these scenes transcend cliché thanks to the emotionally resonant performances at their core.  

Nyad was reviewed out of NewFest 2023. It opened in limited release on Oct. 20 and premieres on Netflix Nov. 3.