Movie Review

This is a Netflix docuseries of 3 episodes on the football star, Neymar.

Now, I’ll mention here that I’ll take a bad documentary over a good action movie. I like documentaries like that. I think it’s because they present truth in a manner that hardly leaves anything for interpretation. There’s a limit to how artistic a documentary can be, if not it risks turning into a movie with actors and all.

Neymar has been in the middle of controversy almost at every point in his career. He has faced criticism for his performance, lifestyle, career decisions, fitness, patriotism, and lots more.

This series gives you an insight into his life. When we watch these people, we sometimes forget that they’re human. When a player picks up an injury, we hear that they’ll be out for 10 months. The game continues without them. We don’t remember that, for these players, this amounts to 10 months of recovery, therapy, having to learn to walk properly again, just to come back to the field and go through it all over again.

I was particularly happy watching this for two major reasons:

• We often wait till a person is late before we try to write eulogies and film documentaries about their lives. This is a step in the right direction. People are telling their stories by themselves and this is the closest we’ve come to truly understand these characters, even as we watch from afar.

• Media has been a tool to spread stories wide and across. It has been unfortunate that most of these accounts are from people who were not involved, and therefore can only boast of being true to a certain degree. And to find that media can also serve as a tool to correct these narratives, and give those on media trials a fair hearing, is a welcome development. 

This one transcends being a fan of the sport. It’s understanding life, what it means to be in the spotlight, and what our little actions constitute on a grand scale.

I would recommend it to whoever enjoys a decent documentary, as well as football fans.