Review of The Damned United (2009) by Ahmedaiman1999 — 15 Apr 2020

I've been putting off watching this for about 3 years or so. That's because I thought this would be a routine sports flick; and although I was obsessed with football at some point in my life, I'm not really into it anymore. It turned out this film is not about football per se; it's about ego. An interest in ego is all you need to watch this. This is a study in human ego made by diving into the psychology of a notorious character. We get to witness his ego emerging, exacerbating, ebbing and then bursting to completely destroy him.

A story of a one-of-a-kind friendship: a bromance of a maternal quality. This is also a profoundly intriguing story about rivalry that I wasn't surprised to find out it's written by Rush screenwriter, Peter Morgan, who dissected it in a brilliant time-shifting narrative that wouldn't be as great if it wasn't for Michael Sheen's committed performance that only with a hint of maturity managed to separate a character in the midst of self-sabotaging himself in the past and one who suffering misfortune because of his hamartia in the present. Tom Hooper's direction is understated yet exquisite, and Morgan's script is old-fashioned yet intelligently written and highly well-constructed. The only issue I have with this is that it's very concerned with its plot almost to a fault. Mind, the characters are more than fleshed-out, but that's not the problem here. The thing is, we often see the characters talking within the context. That ـــespecially with the time-shiftingـــ led to moments where the characters literally name a turning point in the story. This is a nit-pick, though.