“MAIDEN” — 3 stars — Tracy Edwards, Jeni Mundy, Mikaela Von Koskull; PG (language, thematic elements, some suggestive content and brief smoking images); Broadway; running time: 97 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — It’s always impressive when a documentary can keep you engaged even when you know the ending going in.
Alex Holmes’ “Maiden” celebrates the first all-female yacht crew to compete in the Whitbread Round the World Race, which took place from 1989 into 1990. The story centers on the team’s skipper, Tracy Edwards, whose ambition drove the effort.
Raised by an entrepreneurial father and a rally driver mother, it’s clear where Edwards gets her drive. Following her father’s early death and a tumultuous spell in her teens, Edwards eventually runs away to Greece and joins a charter yacht crew, which leads to her love of sailing.
During the 1980s, after serving as a cook on a Whitbread boat crew and getting some inspirational advice from a choice encounter with King Hussein of Jordan, Edwards resolves to assemble her own all-female crew to compete in the next race. “There wasn’t a choice,” she insists. “It was just something I had to do.”
Considering how difficult it was for Edwards to get onto the other crew as a cook, “Maiden” makes it clear Edwards and her team of female upstarts is breaking new and unfriendly ground, and some of the critical journalists from the time are on hand to recount their skepticism.
While the race itself is daunting, much of “Maiden” follows the challenges that preceded the event. We meet Edwards’ team — which includes her childhood friend Jo — and watch the crew struggle to get sponsorship. We learn about the desperate means Edwards used to secure an unholy beast of a fixer-upper boat — dubbed the “Maiden Great Britain” — and then the team loses a key crew member three weeks before the start of the race.
But eventually “Maiden” sets sail, and thanks to some generous home video footage and ample archival media coverage of the event, Holmes takes us through the 33,000 nautical mile race — including a treacherous stretch through arctic waters where the wind chill frequently dropped temperatures to 20 below zero. It’s here Edwards’ declaration that “the ocean’s always trying to kill you” rings most true, especially to one of the Maiden’s unfortunate competitors.
Throughout the documentary, Holmes mixes in present day talking head interviews with Edwards and her different crew members, so “Maiden” largely dismisses any question of whether the women would survive the race (at the time, most of their competitors bet against them even completing the first leg of the journey in Uruguay). But the unfolding story is still very engaging — particularly when Edwards’ team proves that not only is it capable of finishing, but even manages to threaten the status of its more seasoned counterparts on the open seas.
After all that, “Maiden’s” best moment is undoubtedly a wonderful unexpected ending that provides an excellent conclusion to the film. Overall, the documentary is a fantastic piece of inspiration that should connect with most anyone — female or not — who sets their heart on achieving a dream.
Rating explained: “Maiden” is rated PG for some sporadic profanity and frightening and intense situations.