Novak Djokovic: The Wolf in Winter Review

I have always had mixed feelings about Novak Djokovic.

On the one hand, I have considerable sympathy for the circumstances surrounding his arrival at the top of professional tennis. Djokovic had the misfortune of breaking through when Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were not only in their primes, but also enormously popular. Tennis fans had already embraced their rivalry, and many weren’t particularly interested in making room for a third participant. I also bristle at attempts to dismiss Djokovic from conversations about the greatest player of all time. Reasonable people can weigh different measures of greatness differently, but the statistical case for Djokovic is simply too strong to ignore.

On the other hand, Djokovic sometimes makes it remarkably difficult to root for him. That tension makes Novak Djokovic: The Wolf in Winter, the new documentary streaming on Amazon Prime Video, particularly interesting. I didn’t approach as either a Djokovic fan looking for affirmation or a detractor looking for additional ammunition. I was more interested in whether extended access to one of the most accomplished and complicated players in tennis history would help me understand him better. It did… to a point. 

Director Jason Hehir spends considerable time exploring Djokovic’s childhood in war-torn Serbia. This is easily some of the documentary’s strongest material. Djokovic describes growing up amid the NATO bombing of Belgrade and the psychological turmoil of trying to build an ordinary childhood around circumstances that were anything but that.

His family’s commitment to his tennis career adds another dimension. They effectively went all-in on the possibility that their extraordinarily talented son could become a professional player. That required enormous sacrifice, but it also placed tremendous pressure on a child who understood that his eventual success could determine his family’s financial future.

The Serbian concept of inat was used to frame an important understanding of what happened next. Djokovic describes it as a stubborn force that emerges when people doubt or oppose you. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to turn perceived slights, hostile crowds, and adversity into motivation.

Andre Agassi, who briefly coached Djokovic, offers one of the documentary’s more interesting observations. Djokovic appears to need some degree of anger and irritation to produce his best tennis. That helps explain one of the great contradictions of his career. The resentment that may have contributed to making him one of the greatest competitors in the history of the sport is also part of what makes some fans reluctant to embrace him.

Djokovic frequently appears to be looking for something to push against. Sometimes he doesn’t have to look very hard. That behavior also rubs against the current norms of professional tennis. Federer and Nadal established an almost impossibly high standard for public comportment among champions, while the sport increasingly expects its stars to manage frustration without allowing it to spill outward. 

Djokovic’s seething anger, confrontations, and occasional sense of grievance can be uncomfortable to watch. The Wolf in Winter provides a compelling explanation for the chip he has seemingly carried on his shoulder throughout his career. Whether that explanation also constitutes an excuse is something each viewer will have to decide.

My willingness to accept Djokovic as a reliable narrator of his own story is complicated by the treatment of his 2022 deportation from Australia. Djokovic presents the controversy primarily as a matter of personal autonomy. He emphasizes that he was never categorically anti-vaccine, but believed he should have the freedom to decide what went into his body. He also characterizes his treatment in Australia as unreasonable and political.

There is considerably more nuance to what transpired. Djokovic’s decision to publicly announce his vaccination exemption before traveling to Australia helped transform what might otherwise have remained an administrative matter into an international controversy. 

More importantly, the circumstances surrounding his claimed COVID infection included enough inconsistencies and questionable decisions to give Australian officials reasons to scrutinize whether he was taking the country’s public-health requirements seriously. Djokovic acknowledged at the time that he knowingly participated in an in-person media interview after receiving a positive test result. Other elements of the timeline also generated considerable questions. None of those details were mentioned in the documentary.

I have no desire to relitigate whether Australia ultimately handled the situation correctly. My problem is with the filmmaking choice. Djokovic is largely permitted to present his interpretation of a complicated and extensively documented controversy without the film adequately presenting the evidence that complicated his account at the time.

That changed how I viewed everything that followed. Until then, I had been willing to accept Djokovic as the principal narrator of his own psychology. After Australia, I became considerably more cautious. The omission pushed him into unreliable-narrator territory for me, which is particularly problematic in a documentary whose primary purpose is helping viewers better understand its subject.

There is an important distinction between the documentary’s treatment of Serbia and Australia. When Djokovic describes what it felt like to be a child growing up during war, he is the indispensable primary source. Nobody else can tell us what those experiences felt like to him or how they shaped his worldview. When he describes a heavily documented international controversy involving competing accounts, government decisions, medical records, and his own public behavior, his perspective requires external context.

The Wolf in Winter is considerably better at the former than the latter. In fact, that may explain my larger frustration with the documentary. It is very good at explaining Djokovic through Djokovic. His childhood, family pressure, stubbornness, anger, resentment, competitive drive, and need for opposition all become more intelligible. What it does less successfully is explain why other people react to Djokovic the way they do.

The complicated relationship between Djokovic and tennis fans has been one of the defining characteristics of his career. The statistics increasingly settled arguments about his place in tennis history, but they never resolved the emotional question of why a player who accomplished so much has never enjoyed the nearly universal affection bestowed upon some of his contemporaries.

The documentary helps explain the wolf. It is less successful at explaining why people have such complicated feelings about him.

There is another problem, although this one may have been largely beyond the filmmakers’ control. The Wolf in Winterfeels like a documentary crew set out to make Novak Djokovic’s retirement film. And then, the player neglected to retire.

The title itself suggests an aging champion approaching the final stage of his career. The cameras followed Djokovic through a period when the end appeared close enough to contemplate. Yet his career kept going. He remains capable of competing deep into major tournaments, remains among the best players in the world, and appears increasingly irritated by everyone else’s insistence on asking when he plans to stop.

---

Fiend At Court participates in the Amazon Associates program and receives a paid commission on any purchases made via the links in this article. Details on the disposition of proceeds are available on the “About Fiend at Court” page.