The Damned United (Tom Hooper, 2009)

Now this is how a biopic should be done. There's no requirement for the viewer to be remotely interested in 1970s football, which is only glimpsed in flashes in the background. Brian Clough, a brittle egocentric genius in his field, was compelling enough viewing in his real-life interviews and here, in a slice of his life where he rose to become one of the seminal figures of British culture, a combination of Hooper's direction, witty and poignant in turn, and Michael Sheen's mercurial depiction of the arriviste Northerner makes for a whole that far exceeds the remit of just documenting a celebrity's life. It's fundamentally about ambition and the relationships between men.
Granted, some dramatic liberties are taken with factual detail, but it's truthful where it counts: it gets to the heart of an era, of the issue of class, and of the man himself. Packed with bittersweet period detail and ably assisted by a fine cast, including Timothy Spall, Jim Broadbent and Colm Meaney, The Damned United should serve as a template of focus and economy for anyone contemplating tackling the biopic genre.

8/10