This is a man who logs complaints and who engineers every detail of his life, no matter how picayune.<\/p>\n
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Bend it like Beckham \u2014 the narrative, that is. A new four-part Netflix documentary series, simply titled \u2018Beckham\u2019, promises to take us inside the legendary footballer\u2019s private world , with David and wife Victoria, n\u00e9e Posh Spice, candid as never before.<\/p>\n
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Yet\u00a0he has his fingerprints all over this documentary. His apparent obsessive compulsive disorder, as evidenced on screen, explains a lot. (Pictured: Beckham family at Netflix premier).<\/p>\n
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If only it were titled ‘Golden Balls’, after his inimitable nickname. Humor is the one thing in short supply here. (Pictured: Beckham’s infamous 1998 World Cup final red card).<\/p>\n
Do we really think he\u2019s going to give over control of his story, let alone Brand Beckham, to anyone?<\/p>\n
Of course not. And director Fisher Stevens, best known as Hugo in \u2018Succession\u2019, is happy to toe Beckham\u2019s metaphorical white line.<\/p>\n
Recall the unforgettable moment when scion Kendall Roy tells Hugo, \u2018You’ll be my dog, but the scraps from the table will be millions\u2019, and Hugo replies, \u2018Woof. Woof\u2019.<\/p>\n
That subservience seemingly extends to Stevens’s avoidance of anything remotely unflattering, let alone controversial.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s plenty of newer, relevant stuff that goes unremarked upon over four-and-a-half hours: rumors of David having multiple <\/span>affairs, though always denied; the desperate campaign he launched to receive his knighthood (even branding the selection committee \u2018unappreciative c***s\u2019 when he was initially overlooked); a once-close friendship with Tom Cruise amid rumors the movie star wanted the Beckhams to join Scientology; a reported falling-out with the Sussexes; alleged conflict with son Brooklyn\u2019s wife, billionaire-heiress Nicola Peltz; Victoria\u2019s failed US reality show and her fashion line, long hemorrhaging money; and most consequentially, David\u2019s recent payday from Qatar, a nation that imprisons gay people and persecutes women, and his refusal to apologize.<\/p>\n What a multi-part doc that would make!<\/p>\n Alas, as we\u2019ve seen with the recent \u2018Harry & Meghan\u2019 Netflix series, the 10-part Michael Jordan hagiography \u2018The Last Dance\u2019, Jennifer Lopez’s ‘Halftime’ and the four-part Apple TV special \u2018The Super Models\u2019, the documentary, as we once knew it, is dead.<\/p>\n No longer the province of respected filmmakers such as D.A. Pennebaker (\u2018Don\u2019t Look Back\u2019, \u2018The War Room\u2019) or Albert and David Maysles (\u2018Grey Gardens\u2019), today\u2019s documentaries are mere vanity projects.<\/p>\n These famous subjects have likely signed off on their director, their interlocutor, the questions they may or may not be asked \u2013 and in some cases, possibly final cut.<\/p>\n Scandals are sanded down or unmentioned altogether, conflict minimized, personal flaws and failings airbrushed away. Legacy is the play, truth fungible, history rewritten.<\/p>\n It can all make for a deadly viewing experience, though \u2018Beckham\u2019 does deliver in one unintended way. Our subject, globally famous and worshipped his entire adult life, lacks one key trait: self-awareness.<\/p>\n He spends the bulk of this documentary complaining about the Press \u2013 how intrusive they are, how invasive, how he feared for his small son’s life at the height of Beckham-mania.<\/p>\n Never mind that \u2018Posh and Becks\u2019 loved the attention: Selling exclusive pictures of their wedding to OK! magazine for one million pounds; David changing his hair week after week, making front page news every time; wearing a sarong over his pants during the 1998 World Cup, an earth-shattering event known as ‘sarong-gate’.<\/p>\n Do we really think he\u2019s going to give over control of his story, let alone Brand Beckham, to anyone? Of course not. And director Fisher Stevens, best known as Hugo in \u2018Succession\u2019, is happy to toe Beckham\u2019s metaphorical white line, avoiding anything remotely unflattering, let alone controversial.\u00a0<\/p>\n Our subject, globally famous and worshipped his entire adult life, lacks one key trait: self-awareness. He spends the bulk of this documentary complaining about the Press \u2013 how intrusive they are, how invasive. Never mind that \u2018Posh and Becks\u2019 loved the attention: Selling exclusive pictures of their wedding to OK! magazine for one million pounds.<\/p>\n David changing his hair week after week, making front page news every time – or wearing a sarong over his pants during the 1998 World Cup, an earth-shattering event known as ‘sarong-gate’.<\/p>\n ‘I never did [any of] it to create attention’, he says here. ‘I’m not that person’.<\/p>\n Ha!<\/p>\n Beckham also clearly has no idea how narcissistic and controlling he comes across \u2014 let alone utterly dismissive, if not contemptuous, of his wife. By comparison, Victoria acquits herself quite well here.<\/p>\n Midway through the first episode, as she says it was their working-class backgrounds that bonded them early on, David \u2014 listening from behind a closed door \u2014 peeks his head in and interrupts.<\/p>\n \u2018Be honest\u2019, he says to her.<\/p>\n \u2018I am being honest!\u2019 Victoria replies.<\/p>\n \u2018Be honest,\u2019 he says again. \u2018What car did your dad drive you to school in?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018So my dad \u2014\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018No\u2026 no, no, no, no, no\u2019.<\/p>\n \u2018In the ’80s, my Dad had a Rolls Royce\u2019.<\/p>\n \u2018Thank you\u2019, David says imperiously, closing the door behind him. Victoria squirms on the sofa and rearranges her expression. It\u2019s not played for laughs; she\u2019s clearly humiliated.<\/p>\n On it goes: Later in that same episode, Victoria recalls giving birth to their first child via C-section. David has to prepare to go outside and make the announcement.<\/p>\n \u2018I remember him leaning over as I was lying there in hospital,\u2019 Victoria tells us, \u2018numb from the waist down.\u2019<\/p>\n And what did David, who has pitched himself all these years as the ultimate family man, have to say?<\/p>\n \u2018[I] asked her, \u201cCan you do my hair?\u201d\u2019 he recalls. \u2018Which I\u2019m not sure she was over the moon about.\u2019<\/p>\n David also recalls getting pushed out of England\u2019s Manchester United and taking a call from the head of Spain\u2019s Real Madrid, asking Beckham if he\u2019d come play for them.<\/p>\n Beckham\u2019s on-the-spot reply? \u2018Yes. No problem. Done.\u2019 He did not consult his wife.<\/p>\n Beckham also clearly has no idea how narcissistic and controlling he comes across \u2014 let alone utterly dismissive, if not contemptuous, of his wife. By comparison, Victoria acquits herself quite well here.<\/p>\n This is a recurring theme in the documentary, Victoria settling their growing family into a new country only to eventually be informed by David, with no conversation or forewarning, that they\u2019re moving on to another one. Immediately.<\/p>\n When Real Madrid came calling, Victoria \u2014 then a young mother-of-two trying to navigate her own career \u2014 was blindsided.<\/p>\n \u2018What do you mean we\u2019re going to Spain?\u2019 she asked him, \u2018When?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018In about 12 hours,\u2019 he told her.<\/p>\n \u2018We don\u2019t have anywhere to live!\u2019 she protested. \u2018We don\u2019t have schools for the children.\u2019<\/p>\n Yet she made it work, and Victoria is seen sitting front row at the Real Madrid press conference welcoming her husband. Her reward?<\/p>\n \u2018Of course, I love my family\u2019, Beckham told the assembled press. \u2018But football is everything to me.\u2019<\/p>\n Victoria would initially spend the workweek in England and travel to Spain on the weekends, but this is portrayed as David\u2019s <\/span>struggle \u2014 lonely, so lonely without his family, as if this wasn\u2019t all his own doing, his unilateral decision, his family\u2019s wants and needs be damned.<\/p>\n \u2018[It] was difficult to not have my family,\u2019 he says. \u2018I remember being upset on the phone to Victoria because I was lonely.\u2019<\/p>\n This is the context given to address the \u2018affair\u2019 that Beckham reportedly had with their family\u2019s personal assistant Rebecca Loos, its own special kind of betrayal, a cheating scandal to rival Charles and Camilla.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t hear Loos\u2019s name or voice, and Beckham never denies the affair, though he always has in the past.<\/p>\n Instead he blames, yes, the media before offering this bromide: \u2018Victoria is everything to me\u2026 To see her hurt was very difficult, but we\u2019re fighters\u2026 We needed to fight for each other, we needed to fight for our family\u2026 But ultimately, it\u2019s our private life\u2019.<\/p>\n And herein lies the hypocrisy: You can\u2019t make a \u2018no-holds-barred\u2019 Netflix documentary about how great you are and then blame the Press for making your life a misery.<\/p>\n \u2018[It] was difficult to not have my family,\u2019 he says. This is the context given to address the \u2018affair\u2019 that Beckham reportedly had with their family\u2019s personal assistant Rebecca Loos (pictured), its own special kind of betrayal, a cheating scandal to rival Charles and Camilla. We don\u2019t hear Loos\u2019s name or voice, and Beckham never denies the affair, though he always has in the past. Instead he blames, yes, the media.\u00a0<\/p>\n You can\u2019t invite cameras into your home and then complain about people invading your privacy.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t build your brand on being a devoted family man while telling the world that football will always come first \u2014 let alone mocking your wife, as Beckham appears to throughout this documentary.<\/p>\n What was meant to be David Beckham\u2019s greatest piece of propaganda yet just might, as the Sussex doc did, backfire.<\/p>\n Beckham, it turns out, doesn’t bend \u2014 not for his wife, not for his kids, and certainly not for us, the viewers. Golden Balls, whether he realizes it or not, may have lost his luster.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/05\/17\/76212509-12598603-image-m-10_1696522662423.jpg\")
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