2 l September
4 - 10, 2022
Northwest Oregon Screen Scene
BY JAY BOBBIN
Showtime’s ‘McEnroe’ takes an intimate,
eye-opening look at tennis’ bad boy
Showtime’s ‘McEnroe’
takes an intimate, eye-opening
look at tennis’ bad boy
Whatever you think you know about
tennis great John McEnroe, throw it away.
Because a documentary upcoming on
Showtime might prove you wrong.
In “McEnroe,” premiering Sunday,
Sept. 4 (and available two days earlier to
Showtime subscribers in streaming and on
demand) takes an intimate look at the life
and career of tennis’ uber-decorated bad
boy, whose brilliance on the court (World
No. 1 ranking for four years; seven Grand
Slam singles titles) was marred by temper
tantrums and erratic behavior on and off
it.
But that was during a pro career that
spanned 1978-94, a far cry from the
mature, introspective 63-year-old who
is interviewed in “McEnroe.” Here, the
Queens, N.Y., native delves into his life
and career in deeply personal fashion,
touching on such topics as his family life
with with his wife, singer Patty Smyth,
and their children; his rivalry with Bjorn
Borg; his distant relationship with his late
father John; his powerful will to be the
best and his appalling behavior. Archival
footage and interviews with Borg, Smyth,
the McEnroe offspring, Billie Jean King
and rock musicians Chrissie Hynde and
Keith Richards, among others, augment
the commentary.
The film almost has the feel of a
psychiatry session as McEnroe bares his
soul about aspects of his life, which was
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the goal for the film’s director, Barney
Douglas (“Warriors”).
“(I wanted it) to be something where
he’s almost exploring himself and ‘Why
was I like that? Are there other things I
haven’t looked at? Am I going to make the
same mistakes as my father?’ ” Douglas
says, “And I feel like that is kind of a
parable for me, it’s a parable for John to
himself. He’s going, ‘This great man, who
had all these things going for him when
he just self-destructed.’ He’s talking about
his father but I feel like it’s a warning to
himself with his own kids, not to mess it
up, not to be disconnected.”
Indeed, his relationship with his father
is what seems to weigh on him most in
“McEnroe.” But he has a soulmate in
Smyth, his second wife and mother of two
of his five children. He talks about feeling
an immediate connection with her and she
seems to have a window into his psyche.
She even talks about writing a song that
has the lyrics, “I married a bad boy who
turned out to be a really good man.”
“She brings so much of the poetic
insight to John,” Douglas says, “and she
talks about, ‘I wish I’d been with him
since the beginning.’ I think she just
understands him in a way that perhaps
other people haven’t ... and I think that
enabled him now to be in this place where
he accepts himself as well. He’s found that
connection he was looking for.”
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