“It’s not about him, it’s about me” Victoria says to David Beckham in the kitchen as he leaves for work and by the time this three episode documentary draws to a conclusion I’m quite torn on what I actually thought about it.
Aptly named ‘Victoria Beckham’ this documentary is sleek, polished but at the same time very emotionally guarded. We don’t seem to get to know Victoria Beckham as a human being but more as a businesswoman regardless of what interviews are used to pad out her character profile.
What I did enjoy was Victoria putting herself front and centre of her own documentary with on-camera interviews. I have to commend her for that as many a documentary focusing on a high-profile star will usually be a puff piece and whilst to some extent it is (like many of these are) it still takes courage and bravery to sit infront of a camera and reveal things about yourself and whilst we still don’t get the full picture by the time the credits roll we still get breakthroughs of emotional vulnerability and that’s the core of any good documentary.
After a brief giggle during scene involving a coat which had the biggest collar I’ve ever seen attached to it to the point where it obscured the head of anyone wearing it we got into the nitty gritty of the documentary. Thankfully the doc doesn’t lean too heavily on the fashion side of things because my non-fashion coded brain would have had a giggle-a-minute had anymore of those designs been displayed on my screen.
Having David then stepping in to narrate about how he met Victoria and how they became an item was actually quite endearing and what this documentary does so well is use a LOT of home videos and never-seen-before images of Victoria’s childhood and this really adds a lovely homemade feel to the documentary that seems to dip in and out of being heartfelt in one scene and superficial in another.
The series does well in situating Victoria’s journey not as a straight line of success, but one of constant adaptation. It shows how she navigated tabloid labels, the “WAG” stereotype, and skepticism from fashion insiders more than once. The linkage between her pop-star past and the weight (literal and metaphorical) of a fashion brand she now bears is one of the more thoughtful threads running throughout.
Whilst gliding along the surface for the most part the documentary rarely pulls the curtain back on Victoria as a person, a human being or a mother but very much on Victoria the businesswoman and this for me makes her come across quite distant and inaccessible for me to fully invest in as a viewer.
That contrast between Victoria the brand and Victoria the woman is never really explored in any such detail, there’s no real shocks or revelations it all plays out quite predictably but it’s well made and is interesting for fans and non-fans alike to get a mere taster of that side of the fashion industry and the motive of chasing your dreams.
Our Rating
Summary
While the documentary touches on interesting terrain (image, failure, scrutiny), it rarely lingers long enough in discomfort. It hesitates when deeper conflict or harder questions arise—be it family dynamics, unanswered regret, or inner contradictions. The tension between “Victoria the brand” and “Victoria the woman” is implicit but underexplored.
All posh but no spice.
