Next Goal Wins

Grade: B-

I can’t pin Michael Fassbender down. Every time I think I have a handle on him, he looks or sounds different somehow. When I saw his Macbeth, I recognized his bearded, deep-voiced intensity from 12 Years a Slave. A day or two after that, I saw him clean-shaven and soft-spoken as Steve Jobs. In The Killer, he is short-haired with maybe a little stubble, and has a deep raspiness to his voice. I didn’t know he was in Next Goal Wins until I looked at the cast list the day before seeing it. And I’d been seeing the trailer for months.

Director Taika Waititi has said in interviews that he knew nothing about soccer when he began work on this movie, and by the time production was finished, he knew even less. Most of the risks he took with Jojo Rabbit paid off handsomely, including getting an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. He doesn’t seem sure what kind of film he wants Next Goal Wins to be, and dabbles in multiple ideas, with often sloppy results. It begins with him onscreen, welcoming us, and saying it’s based on a true story that kinda happened the way we’re about to see it. Many jokes and bits either don’t land, or any laughter they conjure up is the awkward kind.

I have to mention a great song I became acquainted with earlier this year, when it featured prominently in Talk to Me. “Chandelier” by Sia makes a similar appearance in Next Goal Wins, as Fassbender belts out the chorus while day drinking and driving. He plays Thomas Rongen, a soccer coach who is notorious for having a temper. I don’t think it’s coffee in that cup he’s always sipping from at practices. He is sent overseas to whip the American Samoa team into shape. Rongen is an irritable, uptight character, who isn’t very nice to them, yet the people on the island have the patience of saints, and turn every cheek they have. After a scene where he repeatedly intentionally calls a trans player by her dead name, SHE apologizes to HIM for getting upset about that.

He is friendly with his ex wife of two years (Elisabeth Moss from Mad Men, The Handmaid’s Tale, Us, and The Invisible Man), and even with her new boyfriend (Will Arnett). I like Elisabeth Moss a lot, but she isn’t given much to do here, and has a groaner of a line when she informs Fassbender that “we didn’t send you there to help THEM. We did it to help YOU.” Once they become buddies, the rapport is very sweet between Fassbender’s coach and Jaiyah (Kaimana) the transitioning athlete. There’s a big reveal regarding Rongen’s personal history that we find out about in the last act. I guess it’s meant to shed some light on his situation, and why he is the way he is, but I just wondered why we couldn’t have learned about it earlier. Of course, it all comes down to the last play of the last period of the game, and Fassbender does your usual movie coach thing, by standing on the sideline and yelling.

I have a laundry list of quibbles and gripes here, but the bottom line is that Next Goal Wins has a heart, tells a great story, and pulls it together by the end. The way it ultimately turns itself around is much like the journey of the team in the movie, and real life. As a fellow critic observed, “it works despite itself” isn’t really a compliment, nor should it be something to settle for – but here, the shoe fits. Just barely. It doesn’t work, and then does. And now I wonder if I’ll recognize Fassbender next time.

Grade: B-