Naomi Osaka, Netflix, review: an engrossing character study of a reluctant superstar
Naomi Osaka dominated the news cycle for several days in late May when the 23-year-old tennis sensation declined to participate in a press conference at the French Open and then dropped out of the tournament. She later skipped Wimbledon, citing her struggles with depression and anxiety, though is set to return for the Olympics.
These controversies are too recent to feature in Garrett Bradley’s gripping three-part documentary about the Japanese-born, American-raised Grand Slam champion, who has served her way into the record books as the highest-earning female athlete ever (annual income estimated at $60 million). The film nonetheless goes a long way towards shedding light on Osaka’s decision to opt out of speaking to the media. In this absorbing and unflinching character study, she comes across as pensive, thoughtful and self-aware to a potentially unhelpful degree.
Bradley, Oscar nominated for her 2019 film Time, has been granted generous access to Osaka, coached for tennis stardom from childhood by her Haitian father and Japanese mother. And Osaka speaks honestly about her hopes and fears. “I feel I’m a vessel because I’ve been playing tennis since I was the age of three,” she tell a press conference early on. It sounds more like something you might confess to a therapist than to a room of journalists.
Tennis fans will already be intrigued by Osaka, melancholic and vulnerable off court yet relentless on it. But even if your knowledge of the sport begins and ends with handed-down memories of John McEnroe yelling at an umpire, the portrait drawn of Osaka is engrossing.
The cruelty of professional sport is quietly exposed. In one telling scene, while defending her US Open title, she plays 15-year-old “phenom” Coco Gauff. She ruthlessly dispatches the teenager, who is understandably devastated.
Embracing over the net, Osaka insists they do their post-match interview together. As a player she has taken her rival’s dreams and ripped them to shreds. As a human being she couldn’t be more empathetic. “When I shook her hand it reminded me how young she was,” Osaka tells reporters. “The amount of media on her right now is insane for her age.”
She’s right. And it feels gently damning that the only one to point this out is the rival who has just crushed Gauff in front of the world. The wrenching twist is that, a year later, Gauff knocks Osaka out of the Australian Open. Afterwards, Osaka wanders Melbourne at night. If she wasn’t walking, she says, she would be in her room too upset to sleep. Back in America she is devastated by the death of Kobe Bryant, the basketball legend who became her unofficial mentor.
However, Osaka remains an enigma all the way through the series. She is a global sports icon with the soul of an introvert. A millionaire athlete whose lifestyle, as depicted on screen, is remarkably frugal. And the star of a Netflix documentary who doesn’t want to speak to the press. It’s an engrossing blend of contradictions – and Bradley’s calm and sensation-free film makes for an absorbing appetite-whetter ahead of Osaka’s return to centre court at the Olympics.
