Victoria Beckham Review: The Netflix Docuseries of Confessions and Fragilities

It was 1996, a year when people's homes were littered with black VHS tapes with handwritten labels, CD players, and cathode ray tube televisions. Among giants like Nirvana or Oasis, a new pop group was ready to conquer millions and millions of fans from all over the world: the Spice Girls. Their motto? Girl Power. The blonde pigtails, tight black dresses, and pastel frocks actually concealed a very strong meaning. The songs and choreographies, with their dances and glittering looks, screamed lightness and – above all – freedom. These were times when women began to show a small rebellion.

“Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want”, you hear in Wannabe, one of the most famous songs ever and one that, even today, continues to be iconic. Well, among those singers stood out a charming and magnetic Posh Spice, but what were her golden years, in reality, did not truly represent her essence. Here is our review of the Netflix series dedicated to Victoria Beckham.

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The Story of Victoria Beckham

The Netflix series is a 3-episode docuseries, lasting 45-50 minutes, that retraces Victoria Beckham's story. With hints of her childhood, of a sweet little girl who loved to dance and sing songs from musicals, Victoria Adams particularly wants to tell her journey in the music industry. A world as fascinating and adrenaline-filled as it is deeply narrow and unjust. If on one hand an army of fans shouted her name and danced to Spice Girls songs, perhaps collecting posters to wallpaper their rooms, on the other hand a deep sense of emptiness and inadequacy crept inside her like a worm.

Eating Disorders and the Search for Identity

We want to make a premise: the docuseries immediately appears unimmersive, very cold, and artificial. Therefore, our judgments are based exclusively on the narrative structure and the series' setup, rather than on the events told by the protagonist. What we appreciated was Victoria's sincerity, almost as sharp as a knife. The designer and entrepreneur recounts having suffered greatly from the judgments and criticisms of the press and people. She felt judged no matter what she did, stiffened at the sight of a camera, and began to wear a kind of armor to defend herself.

Although she has learned not to let any emotion show on her face, she recounted how criticism had a profound impact on her, to the point of developing eating disorders. “Was I fat? Was I thin? I didn't even know,” she said. A whirlwind of insecurity that swallowed her, especially during and after pregnancy, with real gratuitous and senseless humiliations. Humiliations that, in the long run, can turn people into mere bodies acting mechanically. From this, that apparent glacial coldness takes shape, which is nothing more than a hard and seemingly immovable armor built over time.

An Ambitious Woman, Perhaps Too Much So

Despite the various difficulties, Victoria Beckham says she has always been ambitious, sometimes even too much so. For her, failure or surrender does not exist; only struggle exists: fighting for what you want, at all costs. A modus operandi that has caused her pain multiple times, but which has led her to where she is today. The Posh Spice has indeed fought to be the professional she aspired to become, namely a designer and entrepreneur, and had to “kill” a part of herself to face that new beginning.

Founding her fashion brand was anything but easy: she had to face losses of tens of millions of pounds and the difficult search for investors willing to believe in her project. Too much criticism, so many insecurities, endless challenges to face, but Paris Fashion Week (the focus of the series) shows the fruits of her labor and the behind-the-scenes.

The Relationship with David Beckham and Friendships

The docuseries features comments from several people, including, of course, her husband David Beckham. His support for Victoria proved crucial in multiple circumstances, although generally – at least at first glance – the narrative structure failed to fully empathize with both. On the one hand, however, it is also right: the spotlight had to be on Victoria, everything else had to remain in the background, given that for too long she was simply labeled as a footballer's wife. Her friendship with Eva Longoria, in particular, represented a sweet interlude in the series and allowed us to get to know Victoria in her most intimate dimension, along with her family, of course.

An Emotional but Boring Story

As we anticipated, the story told by Victoria is very interesting and allows us to learn new aspects of her personality. What could have been initial prejudices or convictions, such as her apparent coldness, actually prove unfounded, showing a deep fragility. Various topics and themes are of great importance, such as bullying and eating disorders, but also the constant sense of inadequacy, the desire to shine, and to find one's identity as an individual.

However, Netflix did not fully succeed in its intent: if on one hand we got to know an interesting personality, on the other hand, the structure of the episodes is boring from the start. Even the flashbacks, which should have actually given a certain dynamism to the scenes, actually proved very flat and unconvincing. Only the last episode seems to have picked up pace, allowing us to empathize more not only with the secondary characters but especially with a Victoria who was finally shown in her sweet fragility, with her pure and genuine emotions, without any mask (and finally with some tears).

Victoria Beckham Review, Conclusions

Victoria showed herself without restraint and exposed her fragilities and problems with great courage. What may appear to be an overly rigid and composed woman, in reality, has hidden and repressed an impressive amount of emotions. She had to swallow squalid criticisms and had to roll up her sleeves herself, despite everything. She is a very interesting personality: if you are curious to know her better, this series might be for you, but don't expect particularly dynamic or engaging episodes. In this sense, unfortunately, the docuseries might bore you very quickly.