Victoria Beckham review: A carefully curated mosaic of stubborn ambition

Growing up, I thought misogyny was an inherently Indian trait. Imagine my horror when the bubble burst. Women have never had it easy but it’s infinitely worse for the girls who have had to battle the media's unforgiving glare from a young age.

It’s caustic, scarring. Fame is an explosion in the face. It pulls and pushes until one snaps. Sometimes irrevocably. Just in the entertainment arena alone, the large number of women one can count on fingertips who were thrown at the gallows for their ambition is testimony enough of how acerbic our culture has been towards girls whose only crime was wanting to be a part of the conversation.

In a milieu as sexist and unforgiving as ours, wanting to pivot and change professional paths is a cardinal sin. Especially if you are a Spice Girl married to a football sensation wanting to break into an industry as exclusivist and snobbish as fashion. Victoria Beckham’s life has always been a content goldmine. Despite her having led such a well-documented, high-profile public life, there is so much that remains under the wraps, the curiosity around her is as eternal as her.

No wonder Netflix leapt at the opportunity of a three-episode series on Posh Spice close at the heels of the Emmy-nominated 2023 docu-series on her celebrity husband David Beckham. However, Victoria Beckham’s new documentary is not so much about the becoming of a person as it is about her journey into the chaotic and cutthroat world of fashion.

Directed by Nadia Hallgren (best known for making Michelle Obama’s 2020 Netflix doc Becoming), the series revolves around Victoria prepping for the September 2024 Paris Fashion Show which was her biggest display until then. In the three episodes—each under an hour—the hectic lead up to Paris is intercut with Victoria recounting the highlights of her eventful life.

However, whether it be her being an awkward child smitten with the performing arts to tasting stratospheric popularity with Spice Girls, meeting and marrying the Manchester United star David Beckham, getting reduced to being a WAG (a highly derogatory, dehumanizing collective term popular in the noughties to refer to the wives and girlfriends of sportsmen) or feeling utterly lost before finding her true calling in fashion, all the crucial chapters of her life are given no more attention or depth than a cursory glance. The focus solely and stubbornly remains on her fashion label. With the Beckhams exercising creative control, the documentary feels more of a PR exercise than a biography interested in charting unknown waters.

When the structure is so carefully orchestrated, intentionally glossy and desperate to be seen as authentic, the viewer’s attention tends to flit from the curated cacophony towards all that remains unsaid and unasked. For instance, there’s no mention of the rumored estrangement of the Beckhams with their firstborn son Brooklyn. He was noticeably absent during the documentary’s promotional trail, did not attend his father’s 50th birthday celebrations or Victoria’s 2024 Paris show. All the other children feature as their present selves in the documentary with Harper (the couple’s youngest 14-year-old daughter) getting the most screen time. However, Brooklyn appears only in grainy footage shot during his childhood. The docu-series also entirely sidesteps any matrimonial troubles that the Beckhams might have had in their 25-year-long highly public marriage.

Even the rough edges that the documentary does bring up are never truly deliberated upon. In one episode, Victoria reveals how the incessant scrutiny and the relentless barrage of media viciousness resulted in an eating disorder but we are never told what it was or how she overcame it. The Baden Baden World Cup is touched upon too but the documentary is absolutely uninterested in dispensing with any new revelations or behind-the-scenes details. It reduces a global event as humongous as the 2006 FIFA World Cup to big boobs, big hair, big glasses and that one viral photograph of Posh Spice.

In the last episode, David Belhassen, Victoria’s current business partner, talks about her irresponsible spending habits that sunk her fashion house millions of dollars in the red, forcing her to look for external funding. But we don’t get anything substantial even here except for Victoria getting plants worth £70,000 and hiring someone at £15,000 to water them. As forward looking as this documentary is, a bit about Victoria’s current equation with her former band-members would have been lovely.

But Hallgren’s Victoria Beckham is a docu-series with a mission. Victoria’s fashion house and how Posh Spice made it against all odds is the only story it is interested in and wants to share. Since it treats everything else as a footnote, it has no room for anyone that doesn’t fit into this one-track narrative. The stars that make an appearance in the documentary are therefore chosen accordingly—Anna Vintour, Tom Ford, Donatella Versace, Roland Mouret, Eva Longoria, Gigi Hadid, all living embodiments of Victoria having earned the respect of those she respects.

However, despite the narrative’s obstinate—almost claustrophobic—single-mindedness, it succeeds in conveying the perpetual dissatisfaction, the unending restlessness of a woman who has never been at ease with herself. Towards the end, David asks her, “Who are you trying to prove this to?” It’s a potent question because on the surface, Victoria has always had it all—a handsome, superstar husband, a beautiful brood of four children, a pop-star career, a successful fashion house, beauty and fragrance businesses. If only that were enough.