{"id":591043,"date":"2026-08-21T00:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T00:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/591043\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T00:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T00:34:13","slug":"novak-djokovic-film-the-wolf-in-winter-searches-for-a-resolution-its-subject-has-not-yet-made","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/591043\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic film \u2018The Wolf in Winter\u2019 searches for a resolution its subject has not yet made"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the eve of his 20th appearance at the U.S. Open<\/a> later this month, 39-year-old Novak Djokovic<\/a> has no intention of keeping tennis fans in suspense.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no date in my mind, to be honest, the expiry date of my career,\u201d Djokovic says in the opening minutes of \u201cThe Wolf in Winter\u201d, the documentary released Thursday on Prime Video.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know a lot of people are speculating that, a lot of people are retiring me for many years. Why would you want to retire me? When I\u2019m still playing and competing at the highest level?\u201d<\/p>\n

Djokovic is the subject of the latest documentary exploring the career twilight of a tennis great, and the noise around the end of that career \u2014 and what makes for a good ending \u2014 has a familiar timbre.<\/p>\n

But it undercuts the project early on by planting a nagging question in viewers\u2019 minds. If Djokovic isn\u2019t struggling with his decision to walk away, what is that discussion for?<\/p>\n

In his previous two sports documentaries, \u201cThe Last Dance\u201d and \u201cAndr\u00e9 the Giant,\u201d director Jason Hehir fixed his camera on two larger-than-life celebrities and reminded audiences that they never truly know their heroes, employing delightful interview techniques and archival footage to investigate the psyches and forgotten backstories of Michael Jordan and the pro wrestler Andr\u00e9 Ren\u00e9 Roussimoff.<\/p>\n

Hehir, alongside Connor Schell\u2019s Words + Pictures and Sadoux Productions, chose a different challenge for Djokovic: Following a sporting giant whose reputation is much more complicated \u2014 and whose story arc doesn\u2019t yet have an ending.<\/p>\n

Messi and Djokovic: Two 39 year olds still owning their sports<\/p>\n

Lukas Weese<\/p>\n

For sports fans new to tennis, or documentary buffs who don\u2019t watch sports, the 90-minute film is a glossily packaged, bird\u2019s-eye view of a 24-time Grand Slam champion \u2014 an excellent Djokovic 101. But for anyone who\u2019s even been loosely aware of tennis\u2019 storylines and main characters over the past 20 years, the film doesn\u2019t probe enough to reveal anything new about the champion, and the incomplete nature of Djokovic\u2019s story makes for a frustrating lack of stakes. It never quite answers a central question: Why now?<\/p>\n

Netflix\u2019s incisive Rafael Nadal docuseries, \u201cRafa<\/a>\u201d, premiered in May, years after the Spaniard retired. Roger Federer also waited until retirement to release his documentary about the final days of his pro career. Other tennis players who have released projects have done so much earlier in their careers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Djokovic\u2019s late-career film \u2014 the winter of the title \u2014 offers a teasing ambiguity that it never quite fully mines. Without his final act in place, it feels like the first part of a series, something Djokovic himself echoed in an interview about the project last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy, because the format that we chose to do it in is 90 minutes. Condensing my whole life story and career journey into 90 minutes is almost impossible. So hopefully, this is just the beginning of the journey, just an opening project. But obviously the first act has to leave the best impression,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Djokovic, who is not credited as a producer, said the most challenging part of the film was surrendering control of his own story. Djokovic partnered with Amazon rather than produce his own project, as countless athletes do these days, to reach the widest audience possible and because he admires Hehir\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a power in presenting your story along with other people who are not necessarily emotionally connected to you, and presenting you in a more objective way, through a different lens,\u201d Djokovic said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to hear people\u2019s feedback and opinions on what they feel, what the documentary is triggering in them \u2014 hopefully inspiring them \u2014 in some way. I\u2019m hoping that people, particularly the ones who are not necessarily tennis or sports fans, can learn more about my story, about moments that define me as a person and as a professional athlete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scenes from Djokovic\u2019s early years in wartime Serbia are undoubtedly the most emotional, and interviews with his parents and wife Jelena shed light on a childhood stolen first by war, then by the pressure of being told as a pre-teen that Djokovic must use his prodigious talent to provide for his family.<\/p>\n

At 12, he moved away from his parents and brothers to Germany, where he did not speak the language, to attend a prestigious tennis academy. The documentary introduces the Serbian word \u201cinat,\u201d describing a national psychology born from conflict that goes on to color Djokovic\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people doubt you, when everyone is basically against you, that\u2019s when you use that inat, that force, of stubbornness to prove everybody wrong,\u201d Djokovic said.<\/p>\n

His childhood, and inat, are presented as the foundation for nearly everything in his career. Children around Djokovic\u2019s age were not allowed much time for play in their young lives, Jelena says, so when Djokovic turned pro, he liked to have fun on court, which ruffled some feathers.<\/p>\n

Andre Agassi, another prominent voice who spent a year coaching Djokovic, explained that \u201cinat\u201d is part of the reason Djokovic needs to feel anger and spite to be motivated on a tennis court, despite being a naturally gentle person. Nadal is also featured in an interview, though Federer is conspicuously absent.<\/p>\n

\"Novak<\/p>\n

\n The film reflects Djokovic\u2019s career back on him, but cannot move past the fact that its ending remains unresolved. (Izhar Khan \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The high premium Djokovic places on freedom is brought up in one of the most interesting sections of the documentary, which focuses on the Australian government deporting Djokovic in 2022 before the Australian Open<\/a> because he was unvaccinated against Covid-19. He had an exemption to play because he had contracted the virus within six months before the start of the tournament, but a panel of three judges ruled that the government was within its rights to cancel Djokovic\u2019s visa out of concern that his presence could be a danger to public health.<\/p>\n

Djokovic is not anti-vaccines, he says in the film, despite the anti-vax community co-opting him as a figurehead. Instead, he says he is in favor of the personal freedom to decide whether he would receive the coronavirus vaccine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pro freedom to choose what you\u2019re going to do with the integrity of your body \u2014 and by the way, I missed Slams and tournaments, I didn\u2019t play in America for a couple years because I was not vaccinated<\/a>. It\u2019s fine. But in Australia I was allowed,\u201d Djokovic says in the documentary.<\/p>\n

His treatment in Australia left a bitter taste in his mouth, which was only exacerbated when the crowd in Melbourne booed him in 2025, when he retired due to injury in a semifinal against Alexander Zverev<\/a>. It was an astonishing reaction to any injured player, much less someone of Djokovic\u2019s stature.<\/p>\n

Here, the documentary merely brushes against Djokovic\u2019s complicated relationship with tennis fans without delving into his feelings on the topic or how they might have evolved over his career. It\u2019s a pattern throughout the film, which can never escape the feeling of provisionality that comes from Djokovic\u2019s having more to give to tennis and the world. More winter is coming. The wolf will roam on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the eve of his 20th appearance at the U.S. Open later this month, 39-year-old Novak Djokovic has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1503,146,85,46,397,1504,1505],"class_list":["post-591043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-culture","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-movies","tag-sports-business","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}