‘Next Goal Wins’: Toronto Review

Dir: Taika Waititi. US. 2023. 103 mins.

It has been ten years since the American Samoan national football team suffered the most ignominious defeat in the history of international soccer (they lost 31-0 to Australia in a World Cup qualifying match in 2001), and if anything, the quality of play has deteriorated even further. Hoping to at least score one goal in the upcoming qualifiers, the team hires a new coach, Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender), a man whose footballing glory days, and other job opportunities, are long behind him. Taika Waititi’s affable but uninspired underdog sporting drama mines every last cliché of the genre, all with a big knowing wink to camera. Like the mismatched team from the Pacific Island, the picture is big-hearted and sweet-natured, but it is also rather lacking in polish and staying power.

As an unchallenging feel-good flick with the potential to connect with a wide audience age range, the film has hit potential.

A regular at TIFF, Waititi was last at the festival with Jojo Rabbit, which won the 2019 People’s Choice Award, before going on to score an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Next Goal has similarly crowd-pleasing potential – it’s certainly less divisive than Jojo Rabbit – but with its good-natured, matey humour and slightly slapdash energy, it’s perhaps closer tonally to Waititi’s most recent picture, Thor: Love and Thunder. Two things elevate the film, which was based on a 2014 documentary of the same title, from its knowingly formulaic approach: first is the focus on the culture and people of Polynesia, a region that is underserved by mainstream cinema. Second is the unexpectedly sensitive handling of the subplot of Jaiyah Saelua (Kaimana), the first transgender player to compete in a FIFA World Cup qualifier. As an unchallenging feel-good flick with the potential to connect with a wide audience age range, the film has hit potential.

The Waititi voice is always recognisable in his work, in this case literally, since the director awards himself a cameo in which he introduces the story, talking to camera while wearing fake facial hair and a Jesus-print kaftan. It’s a decision that will undoubtedly irk Waititi-detractors, but it sets the easygoing, amiable tone for the picture.

The humour is gentle, the characters are endearing eccentrics who, thanks to the tiny population of American Samoa, are obliged to multi-task in several jobs. There’s something of a Local Hero trajectory to the story, in which a slightly broken outsider reluctantly visits an island community, only to find himself embraced and healed by the experience. Michael Fassbender, not an actor immediately associated with comedy, is perhaps an unexpected choice to play Thomas. And while admittedly there’s little on screen that suggests that comedy is something that comes naturally to him, he brings an edgy, abrasive quality to this emotionally wounded, washed-up man which is an interesting contrast to the broader characterisation of the islanders.

Standouts in the ensemble cast include Oscar Knightley, who plays Tavita, the president of the American Samoan football club, tour guide, bus driver, restaurant owner and occasional philosopher (he’s partial to using fish-based analogies as a means to impart his wisdom); and Kaimana, who strikes a balance of dignity and vulnerability as Jaiyah. Elisabeth Moss, however, is rather underused in the token role of Thomas’s former wife.

Ultimately, one of the picture’s main assets is the absurdly beautiful backdrop (Oahu, Hawaii doubles for American Samoa). The picture looks terrific. And if you must lean heavily on numerous generic training montages in a sports movie, they might as well play out in one of the most photogenic places on the planet.