The sheer inflation of sports documentaries has significantly lowered the threshold of what constitutes substantial material worthy of exploration. When every club can just get someone to shoot behind the scenes footage and interviews, splice it with on-the-field action, then promote it as a “unique look” into the inner workings of a sports team, well, almost every club that has something to gain from it will do it.
What sets this movie apart and somewhat bothers me is the choice to release it in cinemas, when it really belongs on a streaming platform. It doesn’t have the ambition to do something differently, the scope or circumstances to tell a dramatic, emotional story, or the relevance to justify such a release. Alas, I’m afraid this is an “old man shouting at clouds” situation.
That said, it’s a competently assembled piece of work, which manages to capture glimmers of personality from its subjects and, arguably, achieves what it sets out to do: PR for the National Team and Romanian football.
Let’s start with the upside: 2024 has been a good year to be a football fan in Romania, as “În Inima Naționalei” (In the Heart of the National Team) follows the nostalgia-driven and considerably more historically relevant “Hai, Romania!”, about the Golden Generation of the 1990s. This time around, we’re looking back upon today’s national team and its path to Euro 2024, the first time Romania has qualified since 2016 to an event at this level of prestige. It’s an admirable feat, but as I’ve already hinted, I don’t consider it either exciting, nor notable enough for a feature film – yeah, I’m one of those guys.
Director Remus Achim interviews a fair few players that are a part of this new generation, which has shown moments of promise ever since it reached the semifinals of the 2019 EURO U21 competition. It’s an interesting enough set of characters, blessed with varying amounts of charisma, but who have heartfelt origin stories and are distinctive enough to set themselves apart.
And it’s not like I have no connection to them. A few years back, I was blogging diligently about our local football club in Timișoara and I enjoyed doing interviews with youngsters coming through the ranks. One of those – actually, the first I ever interviewed, almost a decade ago – was Deian Sorescu, who played in five matches during the qualifying campaign. Sadly, he was not interviewed in the documentary, but is present in many scenes.
Getting back to the chosen protagonists, perhaps the thematic focus to stand out, beyond the usual sporting fares about grit, determination and passion, is that of walking in the long shadow of successful parents – with Razvan Marin, Ianis Hagi and manager Edward Iordănescu all having to reckon with and justify themselves for illustrious father-footballers. And if there is any really memorable material in “În Inima Naționalei”, it lies here, as the sensitive and emotional talk with Hagi in particular manages to convey the complexities of the predicament on a personal level.
The rest of the film consists of a collection of montages from the matches and Iordănescu’s motivational talks, which play repetitively and without any real dramatic pacing over the (surprising) 103 minute runtime of the film. There are interesting nuances to some of the team talks, but not enough to justify their repeated inclusion – especially since they shy away from any interesting technical/tactical insights. To add frustration to injury, when it would actually have been very interesting to see behind the scenes (the half-time talk at 0-2 against Switzerland), this is replaced with narration of events from the manager.
Framed within the context of the team’s revival after a couple of listless qualifying campaigns, one has to appreciate that Iordănescu has managed to assemble a good group of players, galvanizing both them and the fans with the undefeated qualifying run. Something that did stick with me watching this, let’s say, culture-shift, is the emphasis on learning how to be happy again. The movie does well to make this journey towards re-learning some semblance of happiness apparent and it’s something that transcends locker room talk. As journalist Cătălin Oprișan, who is the most entertaining character of this story, underlines though – whatever the National team achieves, it always feels like it’s not quite enough, like pleasing the fans is a Sisyphean task and one wayward step catapults the team to square one.
Overall, I rate “În Inima Naționalei” as a satisfying production for the fans, to whom it is also dedicated – well, to the fans who support the team “unconditionally”, not the high-demanding ones. I do feel though that the movie falls short in finding a true emotional core, through which to offset the less than ambitious or refreshing approach of its subject matter.
tributary stu 