Films based on actual events tend to be compelling, and sports-related ones are no exception. Next Goal Wins is a sports film based on a soccer team’s real-life defeat and a 2014 documentary on said game. The people associated with the American Samoa soccer team are still alive; a filmmaker can talk to those associated with the team and see what became of those individuals in preparing a film like this. It’s an advantage because the game happened within the last 20 years, not 200. First-person accounts are invaluable to any story being told, no matter the method of storytelling.
Taika Waititi is the first thing you see in the film, and it’s jarring, setting an uncomfortable tone for the film immediately. He also narrates throughout the movie, and it would have been better if he hadn’t, or at least used another character to do it. But he doesn’t know when enough is enough. The same is true of his jokes; they are not funny and make the American Samoans in the movie seem like idiots. They’re not, but how you frame/depict a culture or nationality on a global scale that probably knows nothing about them matters. Island life is much different than how mainlanders live; Taika knows this, so it’s surprising that many aspects of them came across that way.
I’m less shocked that the American Samoa team lost so horribly to Australia in the 2001 World Cup qualifier 31-0 than I am that director/writer Taika Waititi made a soccer film that doesn’t actually focus on soccer. They practice and play in the movie, and they point out how horrible they are (repeatedly). The entire film centers around them wanting to score a single goal so much that they get a new coach. But the reason why they all play, despite being the worst team in the world, is never mentioned.
Anyone familiar with the bizarre and often complicated rules of international soccer (football) understands that many teams/clubs have to fund themselves. The American Samoa team is no different; all the team members work multiple jobs to fund the team they play on, and jobs on an island are not infinite. So it’s fair to wonder why anyone wouldn’t just give up and let the team die. If Waititi knew the answer, he left it out of the film. Playing soccer on an island is reasonable compared to the 1993 film Cool Runnings, about a Jamaican bobsled team. If you’ve never seen it, I do recommend it for your watchlist, early 90s Disney that it is. In Cool Runnings, you didn’t have to wonder why those teammates wanted to do the impossible, what drove them, and what pushed them to improve. Or the simple fact that they collectively tried at all. The fact that the audience does about a soccer team, anywhere, shows how much Waititi missed the point of his own movie.
I used to be a fan of the Chicago Bears, and I’ve seen Welcome to Wrexham, so I understand sticking with a team because of home team pride. What drives those to stick with the American Samoa soccer team doesn’t shine through in Next Goal Wins. Instead, it tries and poorly executes, making it about Thomas Rongen (Fassbender). He’s a terrible coach that no one wants, sent to a team no one takes seriously. On America Samoa, he’s oddly put in the position to get over himself while babysitting a team that can’t play. He’s so preoccupied with self-loathing and liquor that he doesn’t even notice they don’t fully understand how to play soccer. A team member, Jaiyah (Kaimana), takes pity on Rongen and helps him so he won’t quit them, too, while he views her as a surrogate daughter for his own whose phone calls he keeps missing. It’s the most self-esteem and character development in the whole film, and it’s absolute bullshit. The depiction of Coach Rongen in this film is the opposite of the man in real life. When adapting something to the screen, there has to be room for artistic license, but that’s not the same thing as what Waititi did in this film regarding Rongen’s character.
I wanted to see this because Michael Fassbender was in it. They can’t all be winners. Fassbender alone isn’t enough to save this film from itself or Taika Waititi. Next Goal Wins isn’t redeemable because it lacks a clear direction and is demonstratively insulting to those it’s based on. It’s easy to say a film like that has no place on anyone’s watchlist. If you’re genuinely interested in the American Samoan soccer team or the 2001 game, watch the 2014 documentary instead.
- A Pen Lady
Directed: Taika Waititi Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 1h 44m Studio: Searchlight Pictures Screenwriter: Taika Waititi, Iain Morris Cast: Michael Fassbender, Kaimana, Oscar Kightley, Elisabeth Moss
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