The phrase “Oscar Bait” gets thrown around a lot around this time of year, sometimes as a derogative and sometimes as a backhanded compliment. There’s no specific formula for what constitutes good or bad Oscar bait, but it essentially boils down to whether the film itself is good or not. Biopics of real, famous people overcoming adversity are like catnip to the Academy, so why not play into their hands and make a by-the-numbers drama that overlooks many of that character’s major struggles?

That certainly seems to have been the thinking behind the decisions made by directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, and screenwriter Julia Cox when making NYAD, hitting Netflix on Friday. The film is a jumbled mess of ideas cauterized around real-life marathon swimmer Diana Nyad’s quest to swim from Cuba to Florida, and her tenuous relationship with her life-long friend/coach Bonnie Stoll.

Annette Bening, who plays Nyad, checks off all the boxes when compiling a list of Oscar-worthy attributes. Physical difficulty? Check. At times, I genuinely believed that Bening had spent untold hours in the pool, and the stress and physical exhaustion from doing so came through in her performance. A mountain of adversity in her way? Check. Nyad’s trek to Florida begins less than halfway through the film, so it’s no spoiler to say she fails more than once in accomplishing the most difficult swim imaginable – at age 60, no less. A complicated past that continues to haunt her? Well, yes and no. We’ll circle back to it. At least Nyad has Jodie Foster as Bonnie, who continues to love and support her, even when her reckless pursuit of the impossible may get her killed. In this Oscar bait-y film, Foster’s performance feels the most human, the one element with a hint of genuine thought.

On paper, Vasarhelyi and Chin seem like natural fits for NYAD – their most well-known documentaries, Free Solo and The Rescue, are riveting stories about real people conquering nature – so it’s easy to see why they chose Nyad’s story as their first narrative feature. Indeed, they splice in some documentary footage early on to get a sense of just how monumental Nyad was in the world of swimming at the peak of her abilities. But when she failed her first attempt in 1978, she receded into a fog of doubt and semi-retirement until 2011. What’s most frustrating about Nyad isn’t the overarching narrative, cookie-cutter as it may be, but the lack of attention given to its titular character’s interior struggle.

Nyad’s childhood, which includes a demanding father, a pedophilic coach, and a coming-out story, could have easily made for a worthwhile exploration, but Cox’s script only pays them the bare minimum of screen time. Probably for the best though, as these sequences are some of the most embarrassing I’ve seen all year in every sense of the word – cinematography, editing, performances, writing – you name it, and it’s atrocious.

I certainly won’t decry Vasarhelyi and Chin for extending their grasp and dipping their toes into narrative work. Agnes Varda, one of my favorite directors, successfully managed to vacillate between the two filmmaking styles. And Nyad’s story is one that should absolutely be told, as she not only accomplished what no human’s ever done before, but did so as a proudly out LGBTQ figure. At its heart, NYAD is an inspirational sports drama, and it never really feels like it’s trying to rise above that label. There’s nothing wrong with nakedly chasing an Oscar, but if you’re going to do so, you should put the bare minimum of making a story or its characters feel brand new.

Nyad will be released on Netflix on November 3.

OSCAR POTENTIAL:

• Netflix certainly has Nyad pegged as a contender in both Lead Actress and Supporting Actress for Bening and Foster, respectively. Bening’s positioning is a little trickier, given the competition, but may sneak in based on the narrative of her never winning before. Foster seems like a surer bet for a nomination, but her 2 previous Oscar wins will likely prevent her from winning a third.
• I had heard about the stellar makeup work in the film before seeing it, and it absolutely lives up to the hype. The hours Nyad spends in the water, with the unrelenting sun beating down on her, go a long way in making the marathon swims feel real.