Hope Solo was an absolute star. From 2000 to 2016, she excelled as goalkeeper for US Women’s Soccer, winning a World Cup and two Olympic gold medals. Then, in 2016, she had a dramatic falling out with US Soccer. What happened? UNTOLD: Hope Solo vs. US Soccer, the latest installment in Netflix’s sports-documentary series, attempts to find out.
The Gist: There’s some participation from a few figures in Hope Solo’s life–most notably her former coaches Lesle Gallimore, Amy Griffin and Pia Sundhage, and longtime best friend Cheryl Hirss. Largely, though, this story is driven by Hope Solo herself, as she narrates the details of her life and career over archival game footage.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Netflix’s UNTOLD series of sports documentaries should be fairly familiar by now, as it’s in its fourth run of standalone movies. There’s shades of The Last Dance in this one, though–with Solo herself filling the Michael Jordan role of still-embittered star airing their grievances alongside a celebration of their greatness.
Performance Worth Watching: The most emotional and unguarded contributions here come from Cheryl Hirss, Solo’s former teammate and longtime friend, who adds a layer of humanity to the star’s storytelling.
Memorable Dialogue: “When you support Hope or you stand up for Hope, you’re automatically seen as being in her camp and not in someone else’s camp,“ Lesle Gallimore, Solo’s former head coach at the University of Washington recalls, in explaining why she thinks many people were hesitant to speak on the record for the documentary.
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: “I’m ready to tell the truth about what it was really like throughout my time on the US team.”
This statement, offered up by Hope Solo in the opening minutes of UNTOLD: Hope Solo vs. US Soccer, set the tone for the approach the documentary is going to take. It’s Hope Solo’s story, for better and for worse. It’s the story of how she rose to be an absolute star for the US Women’s National Team, logging over 100 clean sheets in a sixteen-year run of success that saw her win a World Cup and two Olympic gold medals. It’s also the story of how she fell out of favor with US Soccer, and how her career abruptly and unceremoniously ended.
Her story is certainly a compelling one–a self-described “tough” kid who grew up with a complicated and unsettled family background in eastern Washington state but whose undeniable athletic talent was recognized by her community and eventually brought her to international fame and sporting stardom. “I’d just never seen a female goalkeeper do the things she could do,” former coach Gallimore recalls of Solo’s immediate impact in college. “She could make the big athletic save, but she could also put the ball down and kick it a country mile. Throw in the fearlessness, the competitiveness, and it was like the perfect storm.”
Following in the tidal wave of enthusiasm for women’s soccer after the United States’ 1999 World Cup win, she fought her way through an intensely-competitive process to make the national team, finally landing on the World Cup roster in 2007.
That’s inspiring-sports-documentary fodder, and that story makes up the front part of the film.
The second part is a little more complex–the falling out that Solo had with the national soccer federation, and the reasons behind it. In Solo’s telling of the story, she was blackballed by US Soccer for fighting for gender-equity in pay. This battle was a noble and necessary one–and one that Solo undoubtedly played a part in waging–but was it the only reason for her fall from grace?
That’s not entirely answered here.
The first turn comes with her inexplicable benching by coach Greg Ryan in favor of Brianna Scurry in the 2007 World Cup semifinal, a match that ended in a 4-0 loss to Brazil. Solo didn’t mince words after the game, stating publicly that it was “the wrong decision” and that she would have made the saves Scurry didn’t–shattering a standard of loyalty by criticizing a fellow player. She was shunned by the team, and left to travel home from China by herself.
“That was a real tipping point for how people perceived Hope moving and even how Hope behaved moving forward. I think it changed the course of who Hope was,” Gallimore recalls.
Solo didn’t shy from battles with American stars like Abby Wambach and Kristine Lilly, and infuriated international audiences with derisive comments, such as when she called the Swedish team “cowards.” Brashness is often celebrated in male athletes, and for a time it suited Solo well–she became arguably the biggest star in the sport–but there’s no denying that she made enemies throughout the sport as well.
The absence of many of the key voices in the larger story is glaring here–while many of the other UNTOLD documentaries have had participation from nearly every character in their respective narratives, very few of the major figures in Solo’s time on the US team show up here. There’s two ways to read that: either she’s alone here because she’s at least partly to blame for her downfall, or she’s alone because she’s the only one willing to fight the fight publicly.
Which one’s the truth? Well, that’s up to the viewer to decide.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Hope Solo vs. US Soccer is an incomplete narrative–one side of a story that’s got at least few overlapping sides. There’s no denying that it’s a compelling piece of the story, though, and it’s worth hearing Solo’s telling of it.
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