Neymar da Silva Santos Junior or just Neymar has garnered attention worldwide for his unparalleled skills on the field. Neymar: The Perfect Chaos is a sports documentary series created by director David Charles Rodrigues and centers around the life and career of Neymar. With three episodes, the series offers approximately three hours of insight into his life. Considered as one of the most influential football players, he used to play for Santos FC club at the age of 17 and later joined Barcelona in 2012. After making an impression along with Lionel Messi and Suarez, Neymar in 2017 joined Paris Saint-Germain. Outside the field he has a reputation of an audacious and controversial celebrity which keeps him in the headlines. In the documentary, many of his teammates, former and current, narrate his life story. However, the series overlooks many incidents in the life of one of the most contentious sports figures and tries to show him in a positive light and unfortunately, Neymar: The Perfect Chaos is just an ordinary docuseries streaming on Netflix on a man who has done many things. Instead of addressing it and answering the questions of critics, it tries to whitewash his image by burying the truth.
The striking aspects of the series are the interviews of his father, Neymar Sr, who says that he made more money from sponsorships than football. In fact, there are small contemporary and old videos of Neymar’s coaches who could be heard saying that his talent and arrogance is “creating a monster”. The way everything is organised such as interviews, storyline and scenes seem like a hagiography i.e. biography of a saint. The director tries to depict him as a victim of circumstances despite his recurring disgraceful behavior. It discusses his rape allegation which was dismissed in 2019 and spends an unnecessary amount of time on useless stuff such as his relationship with his son and father and focuses more on tabloids than on the field and his game.
In the end, Neymar: The Perfect Chaos is a superficial narration of Neymar’s life which fails in answering what is wrong with him. Unless you’re a fan of the football star, this documentary is just a waste of time.
