TV-MA | 1h 46min | Drama | 2024
Wildly skillful, rising Spanish futbol (known as soccer in the U.S.) star Diego (Swit Eme) is so insecure, he flares up at the slightest provocation. His father and manager Tito (Pablo Chiapella) and agent Juanma (Luis Fernández) worry that his outbursts on and off field might lead to more problems than the match suspension he’s just been handed. If he isn’t contained soon, his swagger could end his career; it could end theirs, too, thriving as they are, on his astronomical earnings.
So Juanma plucks his estranged brother, psychology professor Alex (Dani Rovira) out of obscurity and commissions him to calm the star player down, at least enough to pacify the agitated media, soccer club, and fans. But Alex’s childhood trauma has made him loathe soccer and mob-like crowds; the things that delight Diego are the things that trigger Alex’s panic attacks.
However, cash-strapped Alex can’t bear to sell his beloved parental home; this tantalizingly lucrative assignment might just help him keep it.
Alex starts off his tutorials only to find the young man struggling with his own unresolved childhood trauma—Diego’s dyslexic. Worse, he was bullied in school. His soccer coaches never addressed either problem or his ensuing abysmal self-image. Diego’s girlfriend Ceci (Cintia García) is sympathetic, but she’s forced to referee between Alex, who’s determined to help Diego, and the greedy manager-agent duo that won’t let Diego escape his past. Despite his hot-headedness, Diego warms to this new father-like figure in Alex. Can Alex escape his own past to do what’s necessary?
Therón gives Eme and Rovira the lion’s share of screen time. It works. They both show why their characters are respected in their fields, but also how hamstrung they are by their childhood trauma. Eme may have been cast more because he looks a bit like real-life star footballer, Cristiano Ronaldo, than because of his footballing skill. Still, the resemblance works in his favor, and he manages to pull off the right mix of volatility and vulnerability.
Unlearning Harmful Habits
Professor Alex once tells his classroom that French thinker Charles Baudelaire said that genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will. Baudelaire meant that genius allows childlike wonder and creativity full play, uncluttered by adulthood’s anxieties. But Therón’s film asks: What if fears and phobias pile on earlier, throttling that capacity for genius before it’s allowed free rein? Therón shows that it’s possible to unlearn harmful habits and unleash genius again.
As a habitual top-scorer Diego wears entitlement on his sleeve, but Alex approaches his mentoring with utter sincerity. When Diego muses that Alex probably earns in an entire month what he himself spends on one night’s dinner, Alex ignores the slight. He insists that Diego turn off his phone, spit out his gum, remove his headphones, and pay attention. Diego slowly learns that there’s more to life than money, possessions, and fame. Now more aware of how harmful it is to be humiliated (as he was once in school), he learns humility, respect, sensitivity.
At one point, Ceci storms off, fed up with another Diego tantrum. He pleads, “Don’t give up on me.” Concern writ large on her face, she spins around, “Don’t give up on yourself. … You need to learn for your future after football. Don’t do it for your father or for me. Do it for yourself.” That’s her way of saying that for all his goals on the field, he can’t achieve his personal goals off the field. This changes, and Diego sees every moment with Alex as an opportunity to learn.
