{"id":65683,"date":"2023-12-23T10:00:04","date_gmt":"2023-12-23T10:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/?guid=7cbffd006ab2ca7b8d12c612a1d4d772"},"modified":"2023-12-23T10:00:04","modified_gmt":"2023-12-23T10:00:04","slug":"next-goal-wins-review-chillingly-eager-to-please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/23\/next-goal-wins-review-chillingly-eager-to-please\/","title":{"rendered":"Next Goal Wins review \u2013 chillingly eager to please"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I<\/span>n Next Goal Wins, Taika Waititi depicts Samoans the same way he depicted Hitler in Jojo Rabbit<\/a>: as absolutely adorable. It\u2019s based on Mike Brett and Steve Jamison\u2019s 2014 documentary of the same name, about minnow football team American Samoa and their Dutch-American coach Thomas Rongen\u2019s quixotic quest to qualify for the 2014 FIFA World Cup a decade after their infamous 31-0 defeat against Australia.<\/p>\n

The Samoans Rongen (Michael Fassbender) meets when he gets off the plane are fey, smiling all the time and fussily apologising for themselves; they\u2019re sweetly overemotional and unfailingly polite. They\u2019re too dumb to know when someone is making fun of them. They\u2019re eager to please. They\u2019re goofy little mascots.
\nRongen arrives on the island at rock bottom, inheriting a team whose striker can barely kick a ball without falling over and whose overweight goalie waddles around like The Mighty Ducks\u2019 Goldberg. Taskmaster Rongen whips them into shape through multiple mock-inspirational training montages, but also learns to respect their traditions, particularly regarding the fa\u2019afafine identity of center back Jaiyah Saelua (Kaimana).<\/p>\n

The real-life Jaiyah is a still-active player whose uniquely Polynesian third-gender identity highlights the limitations of FIFA\u2019s regulations, and has gone on and off oestrogen around important matches. Though Waititi relishes the opportunity to show off his ally bona fides, giving Rongen an arc in which he first deadnames the player, then asks her what\u2019s going on \u201cdown there,\u201d and finally gives her an applause-baiting pregame pep talk that encourages her to hold her own with the boys, the feel-good storyline has the unfortunate effect of confirming the narrative that a trans woman\u2019s place is in the men\u2019s locker room.<\/p>\n

In adapting the documentary of the same name, Waititi has taken possession of a turn-key underdog story with readymade moments of triumph, though he keeps his camera very close to the action in the on-field scenes, so he doesn\u2019t have to choreograph very much of it. In general, the film is brightly, flatly lit, with the camera mostly anchored at medium distance and eye level, which speaks both to Waititi\u2019s indifference as a visual stylist as well as to a general we-used-to-make-things-in-this-country decline in industry standards.<\/p>\n

The end of the film\u2019s climactic game is narrated after the fact to a character who missed the second half. It\u2019s just a highlight reel, with no building suspense, jumping from climax to climax, each closing an arc for characters we\u2019ve met. It\u2019s described so breathlessly, its events so scarcely believable, that it feels made up to keep our attention. (It\u2019s the barest outline of a real match, with heavy embellishments.) It\u2019s Waititi in microcosm: a filmmaker who, in the moment, will just say or do whatever he thinks will make you feel good. It\u2019s how he controls the encounter. It\u2019s how he holds onto his power.<\/p>\n

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