Stephen Curry: Underrated

Stephen Curry plays well at school and nobody wants him; he is slight, short, and the large universities will not take him. In the end he goes to a small school: Davidson. He plays there four years and carries a team nobody had heard of deep into the national tournament. The documentary runs two times together: the college years through archive and his present life through direct filming. Now he has won championships in the professional league and is at the same time trying to finish the university courses he left. Peter Nicks directs. The documentary dates from 2023. Its most concrete material is the footage from the college years; the games survive in full in the archive and the documentary uses them in detail. The matter it works at is measurement; Curry was repeatedly judged physically insufficient and the film questions what that judgement rested on. What the coaches and former teammates say concerns not the present success but the decisions taken then. Its distance is limited; the production was made with the athlete's own company. The degree is the narrative's second axis and the film builds it as a story of keeping a promise. The narrative is built to be followed by a viewer without knowledge of basketball. Who it is for: anyone curious about sports documentary and the history of basketball. Who it is not for: the register is admiring, there is no critical view, and the structure is familiar.