Next Goal Wins (Taika Waititi, 2023)
Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins is an energetic sports movie slash comedy drama, in the vein of Cool Runnings and Eddie the Eagle, and starring Michael Fassbender as a washed-up soccer coach looking for a new shot at life.
This movie is based on an award winning documentary, also called Next Goal Wins, that told the story of the American Samoa soccer team. Not only the lowest ranked team in the world, they also suffered the worst loss in World Cup history, losing to Australia 31-0 in their 2001 qualification match. Just imagine being, Nicky Salapu, the goalie of that team…
Enter Thomas Rongen (Fassbender), an American coach of Dutch descent, who is recruited to turn the team’s luck around as they take part in the qualification matches for the 2014 World Cup.
Going to Brazil, where that particular World Cup took place, was never on the cards. All Tavita (Oscar Kightley), the chairman of the American-Samoan wanted was for the team to score a goal, which until that time had never happened.
In the movie, Rongen arrives in time to prepare the team for the match against Tonga. At first, he is shocked by the players’ lack of quality. But over time he learns to work with what he’s got. And, lo and behold, after awhile this cantankerous character even starts to believe in his mission: impossible.
Taika Waititi likes to mix it up. He makes Thor-Movies for Marvel, but also idiosyncratic comedy-drama’s like Jojo Rabbit, What We Do In The Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople. This new movie is more straightforward than those titles, but there is still plenty going on under the surface.
Next Goal Wins is made up out of several building blocks. First of all it’s a kind of slapstick comedy about a team over never-do-well’s, with all the failures and pratfalls that make them look like the Eddie the Eagles of soccer. Waititi has a lot of fun with these colorful characters - as a Māori he can probably get away with making fun of American-Samoans in a way that you and I couldn’t (I guess this is on the same level of Dutch people making fun of Belgians and Canadians making fun of Americans).
The second layer of the movie is more serious. It involves grief. Lots of it. You may not notice it immediately, even though the movie starts off with a sequence that involves all five stages of grief. But look closer, and it’s there.
Rongen carries grief of a very personal kind with him. The American-Samoans hurt because no one likes to lose every game. Nicky Salapu (Uli Latukefu), who made sixty saves in the match against Australia, quit soccer because he couldn’t stop those 31 goals. The team’s famous transgender player Jaiyah (Kaimana) is sad because her transition from man to woman will one day make it impossible for her to play with her teammates.
Which brings us to the third layer, which is the emotional bond that slowly grows between Rongen and Jaiyah. This is the heart of the movie, the relationship that gives the movie its soul. I loved this part.
Next Goal Wins, however, is not a perfect movie. Its tone is uneven, not all the jokes land and the always intense Fassbender is a curious choice for a comedy. But this is not a feelgood movie, but something more serious, and I applaud Waititi for giving it his best shot. Maybe the Next Goal really wins the day.