Next Goal Wins (PG, 104 minutes)
3 stars
Taikia Waititi is at it again with another fun film filled with his trademark Pacific humour.
The writer-director this time has turned his attention to a true story - mostly - about the American Samoan soccer team's determination to score at least one international goal after suffering the worst drubbing in the sport's history - a 31-nil loss to our own Socceroos in 2001.
Thirteen of those 31 goals were scored by Archie Thompson, who still holds the international record, and who has been helping to promote the film on home soil.
Next Goal Wins sees import coach Thomas Rongen - who is Dutch in real life but is played with his native Irish accent by Michael Fassbender (The Killer), per Waititi's instruction - arrive on the island to whip the national team into shape ahead of a tournament of World Cup qualifiers for the Pacific island nations. All Tavita (Oscar Kightley), the boss of the American Samoan football federation, wants is a single goal - he doesn't expect qualification, just a team to do well enough that they don't have a big fat zero on the scoresheet.
Rongen, an angry, frustrated type, has never worked with a team as unprofessional as the American Samoans - and this is because they aren't actually professional players, they all have other jobs and put a lot of time and money into keeping the team afloat.
The coach has no other choice but to stick with the team however, as no other professional teams will take him following his history of tantrums and chair-throwing antics on the sidelines.
Like any good sports film, the team is comprised of a number of fun characters who have their unique quirks. All the actors are Polynesian, hailing from Australia, New Zealand, islands in the Pacific or Hawai'i, where the movie was filmed.
Mirroring real life, one of the players is Jaiyah (Kaimana), who is fa'afafine, a gender in Polynesian culture which doesn't follow the male/female binary. Jaiyah is the first trans and non-binary person to play in a World Cup qualifier, and her part of the story is particularly strong. Overall the film is a comedy, but Jaiya's story adds weight and shines a light on a little-explored part of Polynesian culture in film.
Next Goal Wins has all the hallmarks of a sports comedy - training montages, playing fails, opposition villains (in this case the Tongan national team, and fictional former Socceroos played by Luke Hemsworth and Angus Sampson in a silly cameo) - combined with the singular Polynesian humour common in Waititi's pre-Marvel output.
There are so many hilarious moments, from the delivery of lines from Kightley and David Fane as assistant coach Ace, to the repeated gag of American Samoa's number one TV program, Who's on the Plane, where people disembarking from their aircraft are questioned for local TV (and Rongen's arrival is shown over and over again, making him a famous face on the island).
A lot of the humour though might not travel beyond audiences familiar with Polynesian culture - it seems likely that this will struggle to find a foothold with American audiences.
What will undoubtedly shine through is the celebration of Samoan culture, and the joy of bringing a very culturally specific story to screen.
At the film's Sydney premiere, Kightley mentioned Waititi's promise, while collecting his Oscar for writing Jojo Rabbit, to tell "brown" stories and showcase his Polynesian brothers and sisters on the big screen. There can no doubt that this has been achieved in Next Goal Wins, a joyful celebration of perseverance, optimism and culture.
