"Life is more important than any job..."
After a troika of documentaries examining troubled geniuses Ayrton Senna, Amy Winehouse, and Diego Maradona, Oscar-winning director Asif Kapadia has turned his lens - lovingly - to one of his childhood heroes. Celtic, Liverpool, and Scotland legend Kenny Dalglish is now 74, still going strong (as evidenced by a recent appearance on the podcast series Stick to Football), and fits seamlessly into Kapadia's talking-heads-free template of matching his subject's voice to archive footage. As with Kapadia's other documentaries, this one deftly flows through the decades, taking us from Dalglish's Glasgow childhood to his resignation as Liverpool manager in 1991, and justifies its 104-minute running time. Actually, it should have been longer.
Here, wizardry and wit combine as we see Dalglish fall in love with Liverpool and vice versa - a romance that still gets pulses racing. It's magic to see him working his magic in his prime, and it will make fans of a certain age (ahem) feel young again. Fittingly, the film also showcases Dalglish's brilliance to a new generation. As Kapadia told Screen Daily this month: "My kids know him from the FIFA video game, next to Maradona and Pelé. But they've never seen him play. Football history seems to begin in 1992 (with the advent of the Premier League). That's not right." So, Kapadia has addressed that wrong - in style.
The most powerful part of this documentary, however, is not Dalglish's Liverpool games, goals, or glory, but how it frames him, in the words of one contributor, as "the father of the city", permanently stitched into its fabric. As expected, he speaks powerfully about the Heysel (29 May 1985) and Hillsborough (15 April 1989) disasters, the deaths of the fans, and the aftermath - the Dalglish quote at the top of this review was his perfect response to questions about Liverpool playing a rescheduled FA Cup semi-final in the weeks after Hillsborough. It's an answer that encapsulates the inherent decency of the man, something that comes through time and time again in Kapadia's film. With the benefit of hindsight, we can also see Dalglish's decision to step down as Liverpool manager in February 1991 as one of the first instances of mental health coming on the radar of supporters and players at large. Things have come a long way.
Inexplicably, one area that is overlooked here is Liverpool losing the 1989 league title to Arsenal in the last game of the season at Anfield that May. Liverpool were three points ahead before kick-off; Arsenal needed to win by two clear goals - and got their second with the last kick of the game. It's one of the defining moments of any football season in the UK, and yet there is nothing about it on screen. Hearing Dalglish's thoughts at a remove of 36 years would have made Kapadia's film feel more complete.
That aside, this is a fine documentary. It's not a classic, but it is review-proof for any Liverpool fan. "Thank God for the football, and it also goes for my personal life as well," says Dalglish at the close. Now as then, a master at having the final say.
Kenny Dalglish is in cinemas on 29 and 30 October only and comes to Prime Video on 4 November.
