I want to be like (some) Beckham | Television

Keira Knightley wanted to be like Beckham in the movies and I want to be like some Beckham. Live like a Beckham. Even dogs are worth it to me, the ones that Victoria wants her to get close to so she seems nicer in the world. Beckhamthe documentary miniseries just released on Netflix.

Just as you don’t have to arrive first, but you have to know how to get there, you don’t have to reveal a story, you just have to know how to tell it so that what matters is not discovering it, but enjoying it. This is perhaps the main conclusion that can be drawn from those more than four hours of joyful hagiography. Because Beckham It doesn’t tell anything that we don’t already know—how many documentaries have we already seen about David and Victoria, sir? But how she tells it. Narratively it works like a clock, with its hero and his call, his mentor, his allies and enemies, his tests, his rewards, his love story… And the materialization of the story is up to the task.

Those very close-ups of those football legends—Eric Cantona can look at the camera better than many top-level actors—; that archive so well brought, where we even listen to Rosa María Calaf; that spectrum of testimonies, from the Manchester United receptionist to Florentino Pérez (who refuses to speak in an English that Michel Salgado uses fluently) and that sense of humor of Victoria, who claims to be working class until she ends up confessing, under pressure by her husband, who went to school in Rolls. Or that she leaves saying “I’m going to the fashion factory!” and she ends up admitting, after he insists, that she’s going to get a facial. Moehringer could have written it. It’s the truth? I don’t know, but who needs the truth, having a good story. Maybe I don’t want to be like some Beckham, but rather tell like in Beckham.

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