Beckham Review

David Beckham, wearing a beekeeper suit and offering Fisher Stevens of Succession acclaim, is one way to start your documentary. Beekeeper Beckham will be remembered, of course, for his footballing work but more now for his titan-like presence in the public eye. What he ends up being remembered for is up in the air, though this documentary miniseries hopes to vindicate the man. All those usual talking heads come through, half the production team of The Overlap and the various teammates turned musicians Beckham played with and against. They are in awe of his powers and his dedication to the game – leaving a gap for us to follow suit. But the gap is too big, and viewers may fall into this rabbit hole of no real concern.  

Whacking a bit of Oasis on the soundtrack despite the Gallagher brothers being notoriously in favour of the city’s other big team is a sign Beckham must conjure up nostalgia for the time alongside the man. It is not enough to utilise the life of Beckham as just a straight-shooting documentary, and Fisher slips up more than a few times with that. The struggle too comes from how few ex-footballers are talented and verbal enough to speak on the rough and wonderful days of their playing career. Gary Neville, Alex Ferguson and Roy Keane manage it – Rio Ferdinand and Paul Scholes do not. Where the line between media attraction and football icons is drawn blurs more in the modern game than it did back then, though Beckham correctly marks its subject as the catalyst of this.  

Frosty relationships with a man he celebrated much of his success with, Ferguson, is displayed well. As is the fan interaction and reaction to those highs and lows, the Greece kick and everything in between are name-dropped, spot checked and shuffled around. A loved-up story of an ex-Spice Girls member and the man who never advanced past the Round of 16 in a World Cup performance, it is quite the marriage made and little of it is left up to the mind here. Credit to the couple at the core of this documentary, they detail their family life in an open spirit and mark it to access them and accept their inevitable public life, rather than a way of giving the winks and nods to those who speculate. Tasteful stuff, and inevitably peddled further by a Twitter meme. 

Ultimately the static and big names mentioned throughout are an enjoyable bunch who speak of a man as he is, just a guy living after football. There is no sense of real tragedy or heartbreak within – nothing to be convinced of or enthralled by – and this is both the high and low of Beckham. An avoidance of all the usual traps of emotionally manipulative spots but lacking the pull of such rapturous and ruinous moments. Stevens does well to tell this tale as straight as can be and in doing so finds a level-headed explanation for how Beckham came, conquered and crashed out of football, but soon found himself thrown back into it at a different level. Fascinating stuff, just a little dry. Is that the fault of the documentarian or the subject, though? Beckham would have you think it is both.