Victoria Beckham Netflix documentary feels like an ‘advert’

“It used to be that famous people would turn to social media to correct the record,” said Rebecca Nicholson in the Financial Times. “Now, you’re nobody without a multi-part Netflix documentary that allows you to illustrate, at length, ideally from the mansion, how wronged you have been.” Two years ago, David Beckham allowed cameras into his home to do that. Now, his wife Victoria has got in on the action.

Broadly likeable

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of her eponymous clothing brand, the series follows Beckham as she prepares for a big fashion show in Paris, looping in multiple industry figures (Anna Wintour, Tom Ford and others) to vouch for the fact that she is more than “a celebrity interloper”.

Beckham comes across as broadly likeable, said Helen Coffey in The Independent. This is a woman so self-conscious, she “hasn’t felt confident enough to smile in a picture for a quarter-century”. Yet here, she cracks jokes and does a dance routine with her daughter.

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Boring advert for Brand Beckham

As the series goes through her rise from stage-struck child to pop star to WAG and fashion mogul, we do get glimpses of the real Beckham, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian – a sober, industrious, drily humorous woman who loves making beautiful clothes.

But the interesting questions raised by the show – how we find our true calling in life; why the media takes against some women – are not ones it is interested to explore. This a carefully controlled “three-hour advert for brand Beckham” and it’s boring, which is a shame, as Victoria herself is clearly more interesting than she allows herself to be here.