Beckham review: David Beckham bends the narrative in his favour in fleet-footed Netflix documentary

His rise up the ranks at Man Utd was the stuff of legend, and episode one replays all the greatest hits, beginning with that stunner from the halfway line that announced his arrival on the global stage to the infamous sending-off against Argentina at the 1998 World Cup. I still remember the vitriol that followed, and the Pepsi commercial that the incident inspired. But the series doesn’t focus on how Beckham capitalised on his newfound reputation as a pariah; instead, it provides him with an opportunity to speak about how badly he was affected by it.

The golden boy of English football was shunned by his countrymen after the Argentina incident — even then-PM Tony Blair implied that Beckham was the reason England couldn’t advance. He was called names on the streets, pulverised by the press, and thrown under the bus by the coach of the national team, Glenn Hoddle. In a particularly candid moment, Beckham’s wife, Victoria, nearly blows a vein talking about Hoddle, biting her tongue after calling him a ‘man’, and settling on ‘older person’ instead. He was cruel to her husband, who was only a ‘boy’ back then. But during this period of turmoil, one of the few people other than Victoria who stood by Beckham was Sir Alex.

He describes the legendary coach, whom he refers to always as ‘The Boss’, or ‘The Manager’, or sometimes ‘The Gaffer’, as his father figure. In a bit of a coup, Sir Alex himself appears on camera to look back on his relationship with his protege, the genuine affection that he felt for him when he was a child, and the unvarnished resentment that he developed for him as the years went by. Their relationship practically ended after a much-publicised incident in 2003, when Sir Alex was said to have kicked a stray boot in anger after a loss, striking Beckham square in the face.

What happened next rocked the world of football to its very foundation. Seemingly overnight, Beckham left his ‘family’ at Manchester United behind — the brief interludes featuring teammate Gary Neville are a highlight of the series — and flew away to Madrid, where another testing adventure would await him. And this is where the series, almost like Beckham himself at the ’98 World Cup, commits kamikaze. What was a joyously nostalgic look at a beloved sports star becomes a glorified highlight reel. The 2002 and 2006 World Cups, for instance, are completely ignored. And Beckham was the captain on both occasions.

In the second and third episodes, even the well-researched approach that felt so impressive earlier — Stevens has secured access to everyone from Sir Alex to the mail receptionist at Man Utd; from Anna Wintour to the paparazzi brothers who trailed Beckham’s every move in Manchester — feels tired. Virtually every ‘Galactico’ that Beckham played with at Real Madrid, minus Zinedine Zidane, shows up to speak about him. But it’s all mostly positive. The show couldn’t have done a bigger disservice to its subject and his fans. If they’d wanted an airbrushed portrait, they could’ve simply looked at Instagram.

“I know you’re making a film about him and we’re meant to sing his praises, but…” a journalist says at one point, cautiously broaching the subject of Beckham’s unceremonious debut at Madrid. But like a tentative centreback, the show actively avoids tackling controversy. The cheating allegations are glossed over, as is Beckham’s tendency to antagonise his bosses and be literally sidelined on not one but two occasions. The show also doesn’t appropriately litigate his treatment of Victoria, and his habit of uprooting and then abandoning her for new career opportunities. Most egregiously, he was out cavorting with Beyonce and Jennifer Lopez when she was giving birth to their third son. He admits he was selfish, but even Stevens doesn’t seem to believe him. Each of these incidents is introduced by the show itself; the poor handling wouldn’t have been as big a problem had Stevens ignored them altogether.

Watching Beckham play football wasn’t unlike watching a figure skater or a ballet dancer. He would glide across the right wing almost as gracefully as the long balls that he delivered with pinpoint precision across the pitch; watching his free kicks was like watching Leonard Bernstein conduct music, or like watching Roger Federer strike a crosscourt backhand. You’d imagine that a film about him would be just as elegant. But Beckham, the show, hits the crossbar on that account.

Beckham
Director – Fisher Stevens
Rating – 3/5