Kenny Dalglish review: Asif Kapadia documentary is a fitting tribute to a Liverpool FC legend
The life and times of footballer Kenny Dalglish, from his modest upbringing in Glasgow to becoming a legend at Liverpool FC.
Following his gripping portraits of Ayrton Senna, Amy Winehouse and Diego Maradona, documentary filmmaker Asif Kapadia turns his attention to a quieter if no less deserving subject. For the uninitiated, Kenny Dalglish is a Liverpool FC legend, first as a player, then as a manager, who presided over the club’s highest highs and lowest lows. He might not have led the high-life of Kapadia’s previous headliners – the closest Dalglish comes to Maradona’s cocaine addiction is McVitie’s biscuits – but the film makes for an engaging, football-centric study of a humble, likeable man.
Using Dalglish as a narrator, dyed-in-the-wool fan Kapadia zips through Dalglish’s early life – growing up football-obsessed in Glasgow, signing for Celtic in 1971, winning every trophy in the Scottish game multiple times – to get to his time at Anfield, but still manages to serve up interesting biographical colour from these early years. Dalglish (a Protestant) met barmaid Marina (a Catholic) at a pub near Celtic’s training ground, took three years to ask her out (to the “pictures” and for fish and chips) and ultimately had a honeymoon of only one day. Typical of Dalglish’s dry wit (present throughout), he dubs Marina “the best signing I ever made”.
Even the Everton faithful would stand and applaud.
A much-heralded replacement for Kevin Keegan, Dalglish’s time at Liverpool was legendary. Kapadia devotes much time to the Number 7’s qualities as a football player; his guile, his finishing ability, his gift at protecting the ball and his preternatural skill at reading the game (a cheeky backheel to Phil Neal is pure filth). Again, there is great behind-the-scenes gossip: the so-called ‘Jock Mafia’ of Dalglish, Alan Hansen and Graeme Souness were allowed chocolate digestives while the English players were stuck with plain; Souness used Dalglish’s baby daughter Kelly (now a Match Of The Day presenter) as a “babe magnet” to woo women. But Kapadia also makes more serious points about the importance of the football club within the fabric of the city: as the high unemployment and a rising cost of living pulled the community apart, the football team — and Dalglish in particular — acted as both a balm and a beacon of hope in the darkest days.
Time and again, Kapadia’s film reveals Dalglish’s innate sense of decency. Wishing to leave Celtic for bigger things, he delayed his move out of loyalty to manager Jock Stein following Stein’s injury in a car crash. But his humanity truly comes to the fore during the club’s darkest day (15th April 1989), after 97 Liverpool fans were fatally injured at Hillsborough during an FA Cup semi-final. Kapadia effectively evinces the confusion and horror, perhaps summed up in a stunning still of Dalglish’s agonised face. By then the manager, Dalglish became “the father of the city”, spending the aftermath visiting fans in hospital, attending funerals and taking on The Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie after the tabloid grossly misrepresented the fans’ role in the tragedy. As archive footage shows Anfield covered in scarves, flowers and cuddly toys, you can hear Dalglish’s voice break recounting his visits to the ground.
If you don’t follow football, your mileage may vary, but Kapadia’s film is marked by nifty touches — the title sequence presents Dalglish’s life as a Roy Of The Rovers comic strip played out to the Fab Four’s ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, with the changes in Dalglish’s life highlighted by Panini stickers — and moves along at a fair lick thanks to the work of editor Matteo Bini. Most of all, it gets by on the filmmaker’s winning affection for his protagonist. Even the Everton faithful would stand and applaud. Or maybe not.
Perhaps lacking the crossover appeal of Kapadia’s previous docs, Kenny Dalglish still presents a fitting tribute to one of football’s finest.
