"Advocates to end homelessness, organize an annual tournament for Homeless men to compete in a series of football matches known as The Homeless World Cup." 

OUR MOVIE REVIEW:

The Beautiful Game carries with it a wonderful concept for a feature film, an event that I personally was unaware existed that brings members of the homeless community together in Italy from countries all over the world to compete in a game that they all love. In this film, we follow the England team, exploring several other countries' teams throughout the duration of the film.

The biggest fault of the film is in its crowded narrative, instead of centering solely on the members of the team, we take time away to focus elsewhere. This time could’ve been better utilized to amplify the emotional draw we should have with the England team. Secondly, while his story does develop over the length of the title, our lead, Vinny is an incredibly distasteful human, who cares about only the way people see him and his love for the sport. Michael Ward is a terrific actor, best in his role from Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light, but his character motivations and lack of humanity throughout makes it difficult to draw any connection with the character.

When it comes to the surrounding teammates on the England side, we have a nice assortment of cheery lads just wanting to give their all for the game. They understand that with this event, it’s an experience a player can only have one time so they need to truly absorb it all. With the bits we receive with all the players, I am completely associated with them and their heartache, yet deep connective tissue with one another in the form of their team. However, it’s poorly paced out in terms of whom we spend the majority of our time with. 

Did I need to witness a man on the team sexually harass another player and then apologize with a piece of stolen fish? No, this romance / friendship the film attempts to develop is futile and a waste of time we could be spending exploring the team we need to be rooting to succeed. There is a “villainous” competitor in the form of the South Africa team but they hold no form of characterization beyond that they’re good at futbol and they are headed by a manipulative woman of the church. 

The true champion of the film is Bill Nighy and his relationship with his players. As a former athlete who chose to become a member of this community and celebrate everything that makes futbol such a beautiful game, his ability as the coach is aimed fully in the passion beyond the power inside the sport. Nighy is one of the greatest actors of our time and he offers yet another reason to completely invest in this narrative taking place around a true historical experience. As his character opens up and more is known about his intentions, we truly understand why he’s going through the lengths that he is in order to right a wrong he believes he’s caused someone to suffer. 

For a game about soccer, the game isn’t the most entertaining to watch nor the easiest to follow. When we have shows like Ted Lasso making a match seem like a fever dream of emotion and wonder, these small games feel almost soulless. Tonally the film is uneven, it’s attempting to pack a ton of heart from our main team, but also include silly, needless humor from opposing players.

The Beautiful Game fails to focus on its namesake and instead on an overabundance of characters that should’ve been left on the back burner for a more sincere tale of personal growth and team building. Nevertheless, the film attracted me to its lesson and its fascinating setting really added quite a lot to a rather middle of the pitch feature.