Boris Becker: The Rise and Fall

The story of Boris Becker is fundamentally a sad one, even if the man himself struggles to attract too much sympathy. A brilliant young tennis star who made (and spent) a fortune, who has spent his adult life in an enless succession of short term relationships with younger, glamourous women, and who ended up jailed after trying to cheat while facing bankruptcy. There is a sense of someone who could never, after his extraordinary youth, never reconcile himself to a comfortable but otherwise unremarkable afterlife. This documentary explains how it happened, but it has a tabloid feel to it. Becker himself does not contribute (he gives his own interviews, for money, only where he can control the narrative) and we get, therefore, the case for the prosecution: we see a portrait of an arrogant man, many of whose past associates are only too willing to go on camera and say what is wrong with him. Maybe there is no case for the defence; but it feels a bit distatseful watching two hours learning about an apparently unlikeable (but not truly evil) man.

As a fan of the sport, I can well remember Boris Becker bursting onto the tennis scene in 1985, winning Wimbledon at the first attempt as a callow 17 year old. With his youthful athleticism and boundless energy he made his opponents look suddenly slow and old, throwing himself all over the court to great effect.

Flung into the spotlight at such a tender age, it's probably no surprise that he struggled with the attendant fame and fortune, especially in his native Germany where he became at once a national hero but also instant tabloid fodder especially in his high-profile romantic entanglements with a succession of young, beautiful women. It all ended up rather sordidly and sadly with the embattled superstar being the subject of lurid, sniggering news stories about his private life, the most notorious of which concerned him having sex in an office cupboard and more seriously, his later bankruptcy and imprisonment for tax avoidance. Perhaps his lowest point of ridicule was when he fell for a scam appointment as a diplomat to the Central African Republic as an obvious means of avoiding prosecution through diplomatic immunity.

This two-part documentary covering his spectacular rise and fall is definitely more "News of the World" than "The Times" in its approach to Becker's turbulent life. Made without any active participation by Becker himself or his immediate family, it gives a lot of coverage instead to some of his ex-partners which of course makes for good if sensationalist copy.

Unsurprisingly, the real Boris struggles to emerge from behind the headlines as the programme basically rehashes and reheats much of what we already knew about him without adding any particularly insightful or meaningful analysis into what makes him tick.

Becker history working relationships with a number of broadcasters probably has a good degree of media savvy, has recently published a ghost written autobiography to try to tell his side of the story but one suspects this rather thinly biased account is one which will hold sway with the general public. In the meantime this slight and often over-the-top account of an exceptional young sporting talent unprepared for the attendant celebrity lifestyle which went along with it, only rarely seemed to clear the net culminating, if I can complete the metaphor, in something of a straight-sets defeat as a would-be deep and probing documentary.

This was a very interesting and fascinating look into the chaos that was and is the life of Boris Becker.

In many ways I would postulate that this is a very good example of what can happen when someone with an exceptional talent gathers the wrong types of people around him combined with a very self centered personality. We have seen it time and time again, and its a tale as old as time. I would also say that to me it looks like a deep insight into what can happen when you become addicted to fame, money and women without any focus on personal development or morals, living outside your means as some type of comfort and/or distraction. It seems like he also may be a classic narcissist who uses people for his own gain and throws them away when they no longer are of any value to him, especially all the women of his life.

All in all the documentary portrais the spectacular, tragic and pathetic downfall of a young tennis pehnom becoming a grown man who could have had it all, but instead threw it all away on bad business deals, a overendulgent and too expensive lifestyle and women for reasons only he knows. Very sad to see, but as veiwers we can at least try to learn and not make the same mistakes our selfs. It is also a very good example of how alot of money and fame not necessarily makes you happy. Worth the watch!