Taika Waititi makes warm comedies about people accustomed to being overlooked, and we rate him when he pays them proper attention. His later work too often interrupts them with jokes, sometimes delivered by Waititi himself.
Fi1m perspective
In Next Goal Wins (2023), Waititi appears as a priest, introducing the story and returning to explain it. We laughed at his first appearance, then grew tired of the interruptions. The narration tells us things the picture could have shown. Waititi no longer always knows when to let other people hold our attention.
His first feature was Eagle vs Shark (2007), followed by the breakthrough Boy (2010). In Boy and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), he gave outsiders the patient attention that Next Goal Wins withholds. Childhood, family and the need to belong are recurring concerns, and he is good at finding humour without dismissing the hurt. His loose, collaborative direction helps young and non-professional performers seem natural.
The shared work with Jemaine Clement matters here. Waititi wrote and directed for Flight of the Conchords (2007), whose songs make Bret McKenzie and Clement's deadpan performances funnier still. We recommend the series despite ordinary plots that sometimes take too long to reach the next number, though its strengths cannot simply be credited to one contributor. Clement also co-wrote and co-directed What We Do in the Shadows (2014) with Waititi, a vampire mockumentary built around deadpan ensemble comedy.
Thor: Ragnarok (2017) took his irreverence into a major franchise without losing his comic voice. From Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) onwards, the jokes come faster and land less often. His habit of revising dialogue and encouraging improvisation can produce spontaneity, but it does not remove the need to decide which jokes a film can do without.
Next Goal Wins brings that problem back to an underdog story that ought to suit him. The script, written with Iain Morris, spends too much time on Michael Fassbender's aggrieved coach, Rongen, while the team slips out of sight. Kaimana's Jaiyah receives more care in the writing and gives the film its strongest reason to stay, but Waititi cannot leave the coach's troubles alone. We would start with Boy or Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Biography
Taika Waititi, also credited as Taika David Cohen, is a New Zealand director, screenwriter, producer and actor. He was born on 16 August 1975 in Wellington.
His feature films include Boy (2010), What We Do in the Shadows (2014), Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) and Jojo Rabbit (2019), for which he received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He has directed the Marvel films Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022).
Waititi directed, co-wrote and produced Next Goal Wins (2023), in which he also appeared as an American Samoan priest.
