Roger Federer’s reputation was such that he won 20 Grand Slam titles and had his face on a coin in his native Switzerland. He retired from tennis at the age of 41 after achieving all that there was to conquer. (He was once ranked the second most admired person in the world, after Nelson Mandela.) Asif Kapadia and Joe Sabia’s polite documentary ‘Federer: The Last 12 Days’ : Twelve Final Days) follows the living legend from his farewell to his final moments throughout September 2022. His last professional game. As any sports fan knows, the cameras keep a respectful distance as Federer emerges from his private plane and car and navigates the press conference. There, honest feelings are as rare as talent like that.
Federer’s gravity-defying flexibility has always been a sharp contrast to his fundamental nature. In his farewell match in doubles with long-time rival Rafael Nadal, his hope was simply to “produce something good enough”. Federer describes himself as an emotional person, but with the international media and his management almost always on the sidelines, he has little in the way of privacy. One of the most vulnerable moments the film captures is when Federer wears the wrong dress shirt for a photo call.
To convey emotion, the film instead uses a score that sounds like a racehorse whimpering as it is shot. But athletes witness their own mettle. A splicing video from Federer’s youth celebrates a grace that will forever outshine his four brutal knee surgeries. When he made a mistake in his final game, the crowd looked like they were at a funeral. And the colleagues present, from Björn Borg to Novak Djokovic, seem to recognize that this tragedy – the mass bereavement of an elderly superman – has happened to them. Or so it will be.
Federer: Last 12 days
The language is rated R. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Watch it on Prime Video.
