Affectionate take on Pacifica football
Taika’s new movie ‘ridiculous’ and ‘stunning’
Next Goal Wins (PG-13, 106 mins) In cinemas now. Directed by Taika Waititi Reviewed by Jen Shieff
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T.. aika Waititi’s dramedy, based on the 2014 documentary also called Next Goal Wins, is “ridiculous, stunning and beautiful”. Those words, reported by Time Magazine’s Laura Zornoza last month, describe how Taika sees his version of the men’s 2011 Fifa World Cup qualifying match between ragtag American Samoa and self-important Tonga, with the American Samoans desperately trying to live down their shocking 31-0 defeat by Australia 13 years earlier.
Who, apart from Taika, could get away with presenting the ragtag team as a na¨ıve, almost stereotypical version of Pacifica?
Somehow, he manages to be affectionate without being patronising and to show the ridiculous without ridiculing. That’s very clever.
All the actors, apparently happily, do what Taika calls “dicking around on my set”, something he likes to encourage while he gets behind the camera or plays a quirky role.
Here he’s a moustachioed priest, in his multi-award-winning Jojo Rabbit he was an imaginary Hitler.
Next Goal Wins has been billed as a follow-up to Jojo Rabbit, but that’s misleading.
While both are well-told stories, a film about war-torn Germany and a film that’s a near send-up of a warlike soccer match in Western Samoa have few if any points of comparison, particularly when it comes to their screenplays, an award-winning adaptation outclassing buffoonery any day.
American Samoa’s hopes rest with the hapless hero, the team’s new coach, Thomas Rongen (Michael
Fassbender, acing his role), who has a chequered coaching history and personal problems. He’s been dispatched by Fifa to the bottom of the world to redeem himself.
Thomas’ character develops well, but some of the other characters are two-dimensional: Tavita Taumua (Oscar Kightley), president of the Football Federation of American Samoa; Tavita’s wife Ruth (Rachel House); Iofi “Ace” Lalogafuafua (David Fane), the team’s coach before Thomas; and Thomas’ ex-wife Gail (an under-utilised Elisabeth Moss).
Another character stands out alongside Thomas: transgender soccer player Jaiyah Saelua, fa’afafine (Samoan non-binary/third gender) actor Kaimana in a break-out role.
Being interviewed for Time along with Taika, Kaimana said, “Being fa’afafine means to understand and accept that our identity is closely related to the fact that we’re assigned the male gender at birth.
“And unlike a lot of trans folk who don’t want anything to do with that fact, we as fa’afafine embrace it.”
Any scenes with only Thomas and
Jaiyah in them are outstanding, so are the scenes when Thomas realises Gail isn’t coming back to him and when Ruth and Tavita listen to their son Daru (Beulah Koale) giving an account of the match’s final moments in the film’s finale, which is beautifully interspersed with match footage.
Not as funny as Taika’s films usually are, but amusing nevertheless.
Don’t expect to learn anything about how to play soccer.
You might be inspired to visit American Samoa, for a trip back to the 1950s.
Good school holiday entertainment for teens and upwards.
Recommended
The first person to bring an image or hardcopy of this review to Starlight Cinema Taupō qualifies for a free ticket to Next Goal Wins.
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