Searchlight will sail through award season with Venice winner “Poor Things” and Telluride hit “All of Us Strangers,” but the specialty distributor slotted Taika Waititi’s “Next Goal Wins” (November 17, 2023) for audience-friendly Toronto for a reason. The world premiere audience responded warmly to what one-time Toronto People’s Choice winner Waititi (“Jojo Rabbit”) calls “a true understory” sports tale. He was developing for some time Steve Jamison and Mike Brett’s 2014 documentary about the infamously losing American Samoan soccer team who recover under heavy-drinking Dutch coach Thomas Rongen (a miscast Michael Fassbender), and eventually found a window in his schedule to film in Hawaii.
Early Twitter TIFF response ranged from the oft-repeated “crowd-pleaser” and “sweet” to “imperfect but endearing.” Waititi has had a stellar run, from “What We Do in the Shadows” and “Thor: Ragnarok” through “Jojo Rabbit,” which won the Oscar for Adapted Screenplay. On “Next Goal Wins,” critics will be less effusive.
Waititi was in high spirits at the premiere, sparring with (and breaking) the microphone and bringing onstage an obviously moved Rongen, who recalled Waititi saying, “I wanted my fat bastard friend Russell Crowe to play you but he can’t run anymore so I got Michael Fassbender.” Also onstage was the trans athlete who inspired the film’s trans soccer player Jaiyah (scene-stealer Kaimana). Searchlight knows how to market mainstream commercial fare like this, but it’s not an awards picture.
