Believe

Believe is the story of George, a young working class Mancunian imp, who’s been dealt a bad hand. His father has died in a car crash, resulting in a strenuous relationship with his mother, set on the backdrop of gritty post-industrial Manchester. Finding solace in his love for football, George’s talent is discovered by legendary retired Manchester United manager Matt Busby, who goes on to coach George and his fellow football devotees to victory in the Manchester Junior Football League.

Based on real events, the resulting film is a saccharine and mawkish mess, aiming straight for the sentimentalism of its viewers and falling rather short. Scheinmaan holds our hand throughout, showing us one stock trope after another, entirely scraped from the bottom of the generic sports movie barrel. Indeed, the film touches wholeheartedly on the ridiculous: can you really score a free kick with your eyes closed if you simply believe it’ll go in the top right hand corner? Cue eye rolling and amused sighs.

The film bears thematic potential by way of the socio-economic frictions between George and the bourgeois students of the Grammar School he is applying to, a side plot of convenience to rally tensions and intervene unhelpfully with the principal narrative. However, any attempts to fruitfully explore this are suitably quashed by the absurd caricature of Dr. Farquar, played by Toby Stephens, headmaster of Lancashire Grammar School, a man so posh and moustachioed he spends his evenings still in his school gowns, pretending to conduct an orchestra in his mahogany laced study in a house he shares with his mother.

Yet, despite its groan inducing platitudes and entirely predictable storyline, the film trundles along inoffensively, employing a modicum of charm and heart. Brian Cox’s rendering of Busby as the enigmatically brooding yet overall benevolent coach is reliably commendable, delivering gruff smoky voiced wisdom to George, played capably by newcomer Jack Smith.

There’s certainly innocuous fun to be had here. It’s perhaps a shame that you can aptly suppose the plot simply by looking at the film poster.