‘McEnroe’ Review: Regrets, He’s Had a Few knowing it’s too late to apologise
In this documentary about his life and career, the tennis player John McEnroe, known for his temper, doesn’t bother trying to apologize for his behaviour.
John McEnroe knows it’s too late to apologize. In “McEnroe,” a new documentary chronicling his meteoric rise in the world of tennis, the champion who still holds more titles than any other male player certainly expresses regret over his past behavior, both on the court and off. In the contemporary interviews that frame the documentary, written and directed by Barney Douglas, McEnroe is wise enough to know a “sorry” won’t cut it.
There’s also the question of what he needs to apologize for in the first place, which the movie asks by implication. Yes, he behaved boorishly. By the same token, the patronizing, condescending tone directed toward him from many reporters at news conferences during his career arguably invited his contempt.
And the overblown reaction to his bad temper was often risible. “You can see in him what society has done to us,” one self-important sports commentator intones in an audio clip.
“Tennis is a lonely game,” Bjorn Borg, McEnroe’s friend and legendary rival, says in a new interview. It’s telling that the cool, calm, collected Borg and the volatile McEnroe were, and remain, the closest of friends. When speaking of each other, they talk more of their similarities than their differences.
There’s a lot more here for tennis fans than you get in average sports documentaries. In archival footage and interviews, it’s easy to see why McEnroe’s approach was one of the most astonishing in the sport. His biggest problem, he insists, is that he turned pro before he learned how to control his temper. Recalling his middle-class upbringing and supportive family life when he was young, he expresses some befuddlement, wondering just where all the anger he let out on the court actually originated.
In the movie’s frame, McEnroe walks around environments that figure in his past: late night New York, an empty tennis stadium. At one point, he answers a ringing pay phone, and a voice from long ago responds. This becomes a little goofy in the end but ultimately doesn’t detract from an awe-inspiring narrative.
