Rapinoe

Megan Rapinoe gets a documentary treatment that’s as bold and original as her career. Her play making was crucial to the US women’s team that won two World Cups and an Olympic gold medal. Off the pitch, she’s been a trailblazer in calling out injustice when she sees it. Rapinoe could have easily picked a safe director for a predictable portrait. Instead she handed editorial control to filmmaker Rebeca Huntt, known for her dazzling debut Beba (TIFF ’21). Huntt has a talent for decoding the family dynamics that forge character. Always playful, Rapinoe lays down on a couch as if she’s doing therapy. It’s a joke, but Huntt is catching Rapinoe at a deeply introspective moment as she ends her professional career and starts looking back.

Her journey has enough drama for multiple lives. Raised in a small, conservative town, she experienced both love and turmoil in her large working-class family. She came out as queer despite societal pressures to stay closeted. She was a standout in a generation of women players who elevated the sport. Then she used her voice to campaign for equal pay between men and women, setting a precedent that reverberated around the world.

We watch her grapple with what it means to win and lose under intense scrutiny. She counts success not only on the stat sheet, but also the hard-won victories in making peace with loved ones and herself. She redefines what it means to be a champion.

THOM POWERS