Nyad, More than the I in Team

Last night I watched the 2023 film Nyad, because I wanted to see the performance that won an Oscar for Jodie Foster. I assumed Annette Bening would be great as well. Plus a friend had recently recommended it to me as inspiring.

I enjoyed it for a couple of reasons. First, there are few films that more clearly pass the Bechdel Test with flying colors. Though I guess you could say the brief parts where their characters (Diana Nyad and Bonnie Stoll) refer to Nyad's youth swimming coach, who molested her, would count as discussing a man.

The main thing I loved about it, though, was not the focus on overcoming to succeed, or someone over 60 showing they can still do it. That's too common a message.

It was a quiet point made near the end by Bartlett, the team's navigator, who comes back for Nyad's fifth and finally successful swim from Cuba to Key West, Florida. He tells her he returned because there's nothing like the feeling of the whole team working together on the boat when she (Nyad) is out there swimming along. He doesn't use these words, but I got the sense he meant that they're each doing their part to make it come together — interdependent, and working perfectly together.

I knew exactly what he meant. I volunteer on an annual large event that has the same interdependent feeling, where dozens of people rely on each other to make sure something important happens. It results in an emotional (probably hormonal) response that I can't describe, and I know that accounts for why we all continue doing it from year to year.

Humans are meant to work together in groups. The military works to create the same kind of bond, of course. I'm interested in examples where it exists in civilian society for peaceful purposes. Sports teams are the most obvious, and why people who played youth or high school sports usually think of those days fondly.

I prefer ones that are less hierarchical, like the project I work on, which I like to say is both leaderless and leaderful. The example in Nyad is a good one, illustrated well in the film.