The End of the Storm, 2020.
Directed by James Erskine.
Starring Jurgen Klopp, Jordan Henderson, Virgil Van Dijk, Alisson Becker, Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Kenny Dalglish.
SYNOPSIS:
The story of Liverpool’s march to the Premier League title, during a season which was almost abandoned entirely due to the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
When director James Erskine started making the movie that would become football documentary The End of the Storm, the stage seemed set for a fairytale. Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool had just won the Champion’s League and were, for most people, almost certainly the best football team on the planet. They were heading into the 2019/20 Premier League season full of confidence and with every chance of lifting the top trophy in English football for the first time in 30 years. They pulled it off, but it was a longer road than anybody could’ve expected.
Anyone who has watched the smorgasbord of football documentaries in movie and TV form over the last few years will be familiar with the format of The End of the Storm, which cleaves tightly to the established order of things in these kinds of movies. It’s built on exclusive access to the club’s operations throughout the season, strung together via talking head interviews with manager Jurgen Klopp, captain Jordan Henderson and key players including Virgil Van Dijk, Sadio Mane and goalkeeper Alisson Becker.
Klopp is the lynchpin of the movie and he serves as a terrific interviewee, bringing warmth, honesty and humour to a film which is sadly rather lacking in energy elsewhere. Whether he’s talking about his childhood in the Black Forest, his regrets at his dad not being around to see his star rise or his affection for You’ll Never Walk Alone – from which the movie gets its title, of course – he’s always humble and engaging. Alisson, too, emerges as a compelling and intelligent figure, while striker Roberto Firmino provides mischief and charisma.
Frustratingly, there’s a rather surface level feel to the movie. This is a whistlestop tour of the season, which blasts through everything in – appropriately enough given the subject matter – 90 minutes, suffering from a lack of depth as a result. The season proved to be so eventful and uniquely fascinating that it’s difficult to watch a film skirt past it all at breakneck pace without being disappointed at the lack of insight. Erskine’s football sequences are intimate and intense, depicted mostly in energetic close-up, but the scenes knitting the on-pitch action together have very little of that aggression and passion.
Erskine’s structure is interesting, weaving the club access in amongst scenes depicting Liverpool’s rabid fanbase all over the world, including in Egypt, India, Brazil and, notably, the Chinese city of Wuhan. The virus-shaped elephant in the room is introduced smartly via subliminal flashes of news footage, but what follows is light on fresh insight. It’s certainly fun to see the Liverpool players ribbing each other over Zoom, but it feels like a missed opportunity to look deeper into their anger at the notion of the league being cancelled or to find out more about everyone’s thoughts surrounding the controversial visit of 3,000 Atletico Madrid fans to Anfield in early March.
The End of the Storm, though breezily paced and good-humoured, has little to add to the already remarkable story of Liverpool’s triumph. It’s a useful primer for anyone who has been living in a cupboard for the last 12 months – which is, admittedly, more likely this year than most – but won’t enrich the knowledge of anyone who spent the entire season glued to Match of the Day. With that said, it’s easy to see how much more interesting this movie may be in a decade or so when the ridiculous chaos of the season isn’t quite so fresh in the memory. For now, it’s same old, same old.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Tom Beasley is a freelance film journalist and wrestling fan. Follow him on Twitter via @TomJBeasley for movie opinions, wrestling stuff and puns.
