REVIEW: Federer: Twelve Final Days [2024]

Rating: R | Runtime: 88 minutes
Release Date: June 20th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Amazon Prime Video
Director(s): Asif Kapadia & Joe Sabia

These are the nerves I’m going to miss.

The constant selling point that Asif Kapadia and Joe Sabia’s documentary Federer: Twelve Final Days is comprised of footage “originally meant to remain as home video memories for the family” does a lot to tell us that these are intimate moments of a sports legend closing the book on being a professional athlete. It also cannot help reminding us that home videos aren’t always feature-length-film-ready with the breadth of intrigue and drama one demands. This wasn’t a sudden decision. Roger Federer wasn’t blindsided. He came to this decision and set out a plan to announce it. He even supplied himself a venue for his self-curated “goodbyes.” We merely watch it unfold from the other side.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s an affecting look. Especially for someone who followed the entirety of his twenty-four-year career like me. There’s something nice about the closure that seeing these moments provides. Watching Federer nervously wonder if he should announce his retirement early because the press might have gotten a leak. Seeing his family (his wife Mirka and his parents were mainstays in the stands) share in the emotion is touching. And witnessing the interactions with his friends and rivals Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Murray—all of whom agreed to be there for his final match at the Laver Cup—is a testament to the culture he instilled and legacy he leaves behind.

Because while it’s nice in a completist sort of way to spend twenty minutes following Roger as his anxiety ramps up before pressing send on his press release, we aren’t really learning anything from the majority of the film. Yes, these moments are relevant, but perhaps better served as complementary pieces within a more robust piece about Federer’s entire career. This didn’t feel stretched beyond its capacity since I’m invested in the man and the sport, but I’m sure many who aren’t will wonder what the point of this all is. It doesn’t lean into the idolatry aspect to make it about celebrity or the tennis itself to make it about the sport. Twelve Final Days is just a final press tour.

Where relevance does arrive, however, is the Laver Cup footage. To see how close Roger and Rafa are and to hear it put into words how their friendship, despite an intense rivalry, changed the atmosphere and dynamic of the locker is historically meaningful. Watching tennis in the late-1990s and early-2000s meant constantly hearing about bad blood, isolation, and fracturing between top players (not to mention the racism the Williams sisters endured on the women’s side). Younger players coming in and seeing how well the top two players in the world got along off-the-court meant something. Respecting the sport above trophies meant something. That’s what shines through most. The rest is solely for the fans.