Maiden, the inspiring new documentary about the first all-female crew to sail an around the world yacht race in 1989, is a rousing epic that tells both personal and macro stories about the dual currents, nautical and cultural, faced by a talented team of underdogs up against a sexist sport and society. And as constructed by documentarian Alex Holmes, it’s foremost a first-rate adventure.
It’s a classic woman against nature tale, as much the nature of 1989 mores and gender bias as Mother Nature herself, and Maiden gets us close to the women who crewed the famed vessel via new interviews and reflections on the era’s many challenges on sea and in society. But it’s Tracy Edwards, the driven and passionate skipper, whose story drives the personal stakes.
Edwards was 15 when she left her unhappy Wales home for a new life in Greece, a trek that eventually found her work as a stewardess on a yacht in the Aegean, bitten by a sailing bug and dreaming of participating in the celebrated Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race, some 30,000 miles at sea over a nine-month trek.
Edwards wanted to see the world—all of it, including its seas—so when a position as a cook on a competing yacht came available, she jumped, only to be rejected because, naturally, she was a woman. Her persistence eventually paid off and she joined that yacht in the 1985-1986 race, and after getting a taste of competition she knew she had to do the next one, three short years later, her way.
At the age of 24, she turned out to be an indomitably motivated and instinctual leader who spent the next three years fixing up a second hand boat she would eventually name Maiden, assembling a female crew and fighting the chauvinism of the British sports press and society, who poo-pooed both the women’s talents and chances in the race.
Eminently engaging Edwards also made an early, important friend after a chance encounter with King Hussein of Jordan provided her a confidant who encouraged her passion and eventually underwrote Maiden’s participation in the 1989-1990 race.
Yet even with the boat, team and sponsorship, in the eyes of the media and public, the women were little more than a novelty, and even after completing (and winning) two legs of the race, they were still browbeat by journalists curious not about their talents bur rather, sexist trivialities—their love lives, looks and squabbles—all of which fueled the sportswomen to push even harder.
Edwards, who did much of the pushing, is in interviews here as magnetic as anyone in a recent movie, a sort of classic longshot who makes good after facing so many challenges—her own mother’s doubts she could do it, society’s continual dismissals, lack of funds and a hand-me-down yacht nobody thought was going to be seaworthy, let alone competitive—and she is tremendously likable recounting this story; you want to see her make it.
Yet the movie isn’t nostalgic enshrinement, Edwards depicted here in often raw terms as a sometimes short-fused leader who could both inspire and divide her crew, as well as one unafraid to make tough decisions about anything that might derail her dream, like her early firing of turbulent navigator Marie-Claude Kieffer, before a mutiny could occur.
Holmes, who first pitched the idea for a film to Edwards after hearing her deliver a motivational speech at his daughter’s elementary school, initially envisioned Maiden as a scripted, narrative picture. But on discovery that much of the era had been captured via videotape by Edwards’ late mother (who appears memorably in the film to deliver a critical line about Tracy’s ability to accomplish anything if she’d just stick to something) and lifetime best friend, Jo Gooding, who signed on as Maiden’s cook and shot much of the trip, Holmes knew he had a vault of something more compelling than he could ever write.
Culling Gooding’s exhaustive footage, shot onboard the yacht during the actual race (including spectacularly dangerous passage across the Southern Ocean), a trove of newsreel footage and present-day interviews with the participants, Holmes has crafted a gripping doc about passion and resilience, and watching a fixed camera observe herculean waves toss around the indefatigable watercraft, which at one point begins to flood mid-race, reminds one of great movies about life-or-death, seafaring journeys (and in one tense juncture for a competitor, it becomes just that).
A movie about an against-the-odds triumph, Maiden introduces real people worth caring about doing the near impossible, and its contemporary context is undeniably salient. It’s also a more exciting superhero movie than any other this summer and deserves to be a breakout hit.
3 stars.
