‘The Home Game’: Glasgow Review

Dirs: Smari Gunn, Logi Sigursveinsson. Iceland. 2023. 79mins

The documentary The Home Game tells a classic underdog story, following a tiny Icelandic community’s attempt to host its first football match — and to play better than their last game 25 years previously, when the squad was crushed 10-0. Filled with likeable subjects and an agreeably familiar arc, directors Smari Gunn and Logi Sigursveinsson’s sports film is less interested in winners and losers than it is in celebrating a son’s desire to realise his father’s dream of bringing the FA Cup to Hellissandur in West Iceland. The stakes are low and there are no villains in sight, resulting in a pleasant picture offering feel-good comforts.

A pleasant picture offering feel-good comforts

The Home Game is the feature-length directorial debut of Gunn and Sigursveinsson, who also served as editors on this breezy documentary. (Sigursveinsson is additionally credited as cinematographer.) It screens in Glasgow, courting viewers who love stories where the proverbial little guys triumph — although it is a measure of this film’s lowkey charm that what ultimately constitutes a ‘triumph’ is unusual for this sort of tale. There are superficial similarities to the 2014 documentary Next Goal Wins, which was adapted by Taika Waititi last year, in that both stories spotlight hapless football teams fighting for respectability. 

In the 1990s, football coach Vidar Gylfason had the bold idea to build a regulation pitch in his hometown of Hellissandur, which has a population of 369. He hoped it would foster love for the sport, as well as earn his town the right to host a FA Cup game. Unfortunately, when his Reynir FC were selected in 1996, they got an away game, which they lost in humiliating fashion. Decades later, Vidar’s son Kari tries to succeed where his father could not, recruiting a team consisting of members of the original Reynir FC squad, who are now middle-aged and out of shape, alongside younger locals. They eventually get their wish to host a home match, but it will be against a team much more talented than they are. 

With assistance from Kristjan Sturla Bjarnason’s peppy score, the film takes special interest in Vidar and his son Kari, who feels that his father never recovered from Reynir FC’s embarrassing defeat. (At one point, Vidar admits that he no longer likes football, turning his focus to golf.) Kari does not harbour any illusions that the new squad can be champions, but he hopes they can at least hold their own in a match — even if several of the older team members have not played in quite some time.

The filmmakers lean into the material’s offbeat, shaggy-dog qualities, displaying ample affection for Kari and the rest of this ragtag bunch. The Home Game makes a point to mention that, because Hellissandur has such a small population, women and men played on the same team back in 1996 – a rarity considering that most football organisations require the two sexes to have separate squads. That creates a slight amount of suspense as one of the current team’s best players, Freydis, may not be allowed to compete in the FA Cup, as it is meant to be only for men. But like other mild conflicts in The Home Game, this obstacle is resolved relatively easily, leading to one of the documentary’s more heartwarming episodes.

Hellissandur’s lovely pitch — this striking rectangle of green amidst an otherwise barren, frozen tundra — is a potent symbol of the community’s resilience as they prepare for this match, knowing the odds are against them. Inevitably, The Home Game treats us to training montages, but both these and the eventual game are assembled in an effective, unfussy manner. It would be unsporting to reveal what happens, although the results are not quite as pulse-pounding as one might have hoped. Still, Gunn and Sigursveinsson manage to make the game sufficiently riveting, especially as Reynir FC slowly prove itself to be a worthy opponent. 

Appropriate for this modest picture, Vidar and Kari do not arrive at any grand revelations by the end of the film — and, likewise, The Home Game fails to offer much new on the topic of doing something that you love, no matter how good you may or may not be at it. But at less than 80 minutes, the documentary reminds viewers that, for most of us, sports are not life-or-death but, rather, a joy that briefly takes us away from our regular lives.