Maiden Movie Review
I saw the trailer for Maiden a few months ago and immediately wanted to see it. That may be because I love documentaries about incredible feats (see Free Solo, Meru). But I also love sailing even though I have literally zero knowledge about it whatsoever. I just recently learned what it means to tack. Here’s an article on nautical terms in case, like me, you are not a sailing buff.
Maiden is the incredible true story about Tracy Edwards, a twenty-something young woman who wanted to be a sailor. She becomes determined to enter the Whitbread Round the World Race and is told that no one wants to have a female on board. So she does the logical next step and creates an all female crew and enters the race on her own. Reading this today, Edwards and the crew may not seem too impressive. However, this was the 1980’s. And for those of you who don’t know much about sailing (I just learned a bunch of nautical terms five minutes ago, so naturally I am an expert on the topic now), it continues to be a very male dominated sport even to this day.
The women in the crew were ridiculed and not taken seriously as sailors. Director Alex Holmes gets interviews with several journalists who covered the event. The journalists are all men and they recall writing about the Maiden crew and their chances and likelihood of success. All of the recollections are similar, the women were not taken seriously in the competition. They were covered as a human interest piece in the beginning. That is, until they started winning.
The most compelling part of the documentary is hearing from the members of the Maiden crew. You don’t sail 33,000 miles around the world in a span of nine months without having some stories to tell. You can feel through the screen how much this event bonded the women together and how much it meant to each of them as individuals to be making history. However, Holmes makes sure to include the rough patches the women endured, highlighting mistakes that Edwards made as skipper and navigator. The movie does a great job of showcasing how high the stakes are and how one mistake can be deadly.
Towards the end of the movie you’ll find yourself caught up in the raw emotion of their journey. It made my heart swell to see how the Maiden voyage ended. I can’t imagine how it would have felt to actually be part of it. If you need some inspiration in your life you’ll find it watching Maiden. One of the crew members sums it up best saying, “What if I tell you about a young girl who had a dream about sailing around the world? What if I tell you that it did happen?”
Film or Movie: Movie
You’ll like this movie if:
1. You like documentaries about astonishing journeys
2. You want to be inspired by a group of trailblazers
3. You are interested in sailing
