The Damned United

[October 28th, 2009]

All right, so I understand that you’re in no mood to see a movie about soccer. This Merritt Paulson MLS situation has been hard on all of us. But you’re still interested in our homegrown brand of football, I should hope, and you’ve been waiting seven weeks now to see Brett Favre get his comeuppance for donning a Minnesota Vikings jersey. Well, The Damned United is the closest we’ll get for a while: It’s a true story about a footballer who leaves his beloved, green-clad team to marshal of crew of thugs wearing purple. His name is Brian Clough, and he’s an upstart coach obsessed with the British club Leeds United. You could say that he figures the only way he can beat Leeds is by joining them. He lasts 44 days.

You don’t need to like sports at all to enjoy the hell out of The Damned United. It stars Michael Sheen as Clough, and is written by Peter Morgan; the pair previously collaborated on The Queen and Frost/Nixon, where Sheen played Tony Blair and David Frost, respectively. Believe it or not, this film is better than either of those forebears—Sheen has never been quite this delightful. If this performance is any indication, it’s a wonder Clough lasted as long as he did. A cocksure bantam of a man, Clough makes brash telly appearances where he rubs his eye and flicks his tongue over his teeth in gestures of contempt. He derides his new players as cheats. In flashbacks to the days of his first coaching gig at Derby County, we see him delicately arranging oranges and ashtrays in the visiting locker room, trying to curry favor with the celebrities of Leeds. He is hopelessly arrogant, narcissistic and resentful. I really, really loved him.

The directing work by Tom Hooper (HBO’s John Adams) is crisp and occasionally even beautiful. There’s a scene, midway through, where Clough stands in his empty office under the grandstands, too terrified to watch his boys play the title holders; his only way of knowing how the game is progressing is when the windows are darkened by fans standing to cheer. The closer he gets to victory, the more his face is blanketed by shadows. His only hope of escaping his own mania is through friendship with his top scout, Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall), a man so devoted that he feeds potato chips into his pal’s mouth while he drives to meetings. Like Taylor, The Damned United isn’t ultimately interested in championships; it’s about the joys of loyalty. Maybe someday Brett Favre will watch it. R.