Tigers (2021)

There is something really quite unnerving about this drama. It adopts a fly-on-the-wall approach to depict the brief time Martin Bengtsson spent at Inter Milan in 2004. He was a skinny, determined, 16 year old bought by this legendary football club where, upon arrival, he struggled pretty much from the start of his short-lived flirtation with top flight football. Erik Enge is really very good in the role. His desire to succeed and to sacrifice whatever is needed to achieve that, is palpably delivered as the film gradually exposes us to a culture in which success is everything. Not speaking Italian doesn't help the young Swede, nor does his own lack of maturity - but it is soon pretty clear that this kind of training atmosphere is not designed to foster any sort of team spirit. It is very much dog eat dog - failure means sale or worse. Luckily, he makes friends with "Ryan" (Alfred Enoch) who speaks English, helps him find his way, buy his first car (even if he is too young to drive) and to see a bit of the nightlife where he meets model "Vibeke" (Frida Gustavsson). His bosses take a dim view of this liaison and coupled with the alienation and pressures he is constantly subjected to, we are soon aware that his mental health is just as precarious as his physical one. This film aims fairly and squarely at an industry - and that is, I think, entertainment in general, not just soccer - that values success at all costs. People are just as much a product as if they were in a jar on a shelf. The challenges he faces are immense but so are the rewards, and those who facilitate - rather than deliver themselves, are benignly ruthless and seriously risk averse. Bengtsson was a boy in a man's world. Lonely, isolated and treated little better than a performing chimpanzee. The film itself is actually not that great. The production is quite basic and the POV style of photography did start to annoy me after a while, but the underlying messages of a desperation to thrive subsuming everything, and of an industry that cares little of any "duty of care" to those it attracts makes for a compelling, at times quite tough, film to watch.