Victoria Beckham ★★★
Ever since the “be honest!” moment in David Beckham’s 2023 Netflix documentary – where David challenged his wife Victoria Beckham’s assertion that she was working class when, in fact, her dad drove her to school in a Rolls-Royce – a documentary about Victoria has been hotly anticipated.
Victoria Beckham now gets the chance to tell her story in her own Netflix documentary.
She was, after all, a former Spice Girl, the Posh to his Becks, a footballing WAG and a longtime tabloid favourite who had somehow survived in the spotlight ever since she wiggled on stage in a little Gucci dress and sang Wannabe.
Would we finally get to see the real Victoria Beckham – the one who smiles, is witty and self-deprecating, the one who has been glimpsed in passing over 30-plus years in the celebrity game?
The answer is kinda, sorta, maybe.
What we do get is a controlled portrait of a very driven woman, who has worked hard to prove herself to, well, herself. And to her husband, even though he tells her constantly she doesn’t need to. David adores Victoria – that is evident across both documentaries – but she still doesn’t seem to adore herself. The ghosts of her past, of being told she was not “aesthetically pleasing” enough to be at the front of the stage during drama school performances, that she was either Skinny Spice or Chubby Spice, are what keep pushing her today.
Victoria and David Beckham are still a delightful couple, but don’t get to see enough of it in the documentary Victoria Beckham.
Directed by Nadia Hallgren, who directed the 2020 Michelle Obama documentary Becoming, and produced by David’s company Studio 99, the three-part documentary is framed around Victoria’s eponymous fashion label as it approaches Paris Fashion Week. The show will be the brand’s biggest ever and a statement about its creative and financial health after a few difficult years.
Because of this, the documentary is stacked with big names in fashion – Vogue’s Anna Wintour, designers Tom Ford, Donatella Versace and Roland Mouret, and supermodel Gigi Hadid. It also features, of course, David, her good friend Eva Longoria (the most energetic of the talking heads), her parents (briefly) and her business partner, David Belhassen.