Taika Waititi Fumbles His Adaptation of 'Next Goal Wins'

There was a time when New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi was a very acclaimed up-and-comer — from his sophomore success Boy (2010) to the even more widely acclaimed What We Do in the Shadows (2014) and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016). Then he had his forays into American film and television with various Disney properties such as The Mandalorian and the two most recent Thor movies. Somewhere in between he squeezed in Oscar-nominated TIFF People’s Choice winner Jojo Rabbit (2019). But over time, there’s been a steep drop in the quality of his filmography, and that unfortunately persists with Next Goal Wins.

Next Goal Wins is based on the true story of the American Samoan national soccer team, who suffered the worst defeat in the history of international soccer, losing to Australia 31-0 in 2001. Ten years later we meet coach Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender), who’s just been fired from the United States’ national team. He’s given a choice: go unemployed, or to take a job coaching the bottom-ranked international team — American Samoa. He takes the job with the aim of getting the team to score just one goal. 

Let’s get some things out of the way upfront. If you are a soccer fan, this isn’t for you. If you are here for queer sports icon Jaiyah Saelua, this isn’t for you. (If you’re tuning in for either of those reasons, I’d instead recommend the 2014 documentary of the same name, focusing on the same story, by Mike Brett and Steve Jamison.) As with Jojo Rabbit, Waititi is taking real-life events and turning them into something of his own. The plot of the film has little regard for the real-world events that inspired them. But even with that established, as an independent work detached from its source material, it suffers from many issues.

Next Goal Wins first and foremost tries to invert the white-savior trope. Waititi set out to make a movie in which, instead of the white man saving the day, a white man is changed by those around him, who lead him to grow as a person. But herein lies the biggest issue. The fictionalized version of Fa’afafine midfielder Jaiyah Saelua is mostly used in the film for her gender — to present conflict between the coach and Samoan culture. (Fa’afafine is a gender that exists in Samoan culture, in which an individual assigned male at birth later comes out as gender fluid and adopts both gender roles, sometimes taking on Western labels such as trans or nonbinary.) Jaiyah’s gender identity being tied to Rongen’s growth brings up many moments of discrimination and the worst oversimplification of gender dysphoria that wasn’t given the care it needed — especially with this being many audiences’ first experience with what are known as MVPFAFF+ identities.

Waititi has said that a goal of making this movie was to provide a representation of Indigenous people that is closer to his own experience. Waititi is Maori, and he has indicated his intention is to break from the overly stoic depictions of his people seen throughout the medium. Whether he succeeded is a question for the Pasifika community. After all, even though Waititi’s mother is Jewish, he still received a lot of backlash for his depiction of World War II Germany in Jojo Rabbit.

Next Goal Wins, save for Moana, may be many audiences’ first experience with Pasifika characters. It’s unfortunate that while Waititi had good intentions with his push for Indigenous/Pasifika inclusion, the final work is bogged down with the mishandling of gender identities and a seemingly uncaring attitude toward the source material that will leave many with a sour taste in their mouths when the credits roll.