For the most part, Jason Hehir’s Novak Djokovic: The Wolf in Winter moves along expected lines, like any other sport-celebrity documentaries. The 39-year-old tennis icon talks about the early years, the turmoil of professional tennis as a junior, and his eventual ascent to stardom. The hostility from fans of the Federer-Nadal rivalry, who treated him as an unwelcome entity, as he dominated the 2010s. It’s still familiar territory for most tennis fans.But then it talks about the 2022 Australian Open crisis, where Djokovic was detained at the Melbourne airport, and then deported for not being vaccinated. In the film, he talks about two stipulations that tournament organisers had put forth for players and staff: either they had to be vaccinated, or they should have battled corona in the preceding six months – in which case they would be given exemption certificates. Djokovic, who made the wildly unpopular decision of not wanting to take the vaccine, and then declaring it on social media – had battled the coronavirus twice in the six months leading up to the grand slam. Having procured an exemption, he put up a picture on his Instagram about going down under, ready to participate. The social media post took on a life of its own, as some saw it as an influential athlete bragging about his unvaccinated status. An Australian court ruled against him, and he was put on a plane back home, after being held for close to a day.A still from ‘Novak Djokovic: The Wolf in Winter’. Photo: Screengrab from YouTube.This incident is a microcosm for Djokovic’s unpopularity in sections among tennis fans. How the film treats it also reveals something about its rigour. Djokovic insists it was *his* decision, and he wasn’t recommending it to anyone else. He laughs about how he became the posterboy for the anti-vaxxing movement. Never once does he address the reality that for an athlete with his foot-print, it was possibly irresponsible. If anything, he seems more determined and defensive about his stance. When the filmmaker asks him why he refused to take the vaccine – he reiterates his “freedom to choose”. Which is fair. But there’s no follow-up question on whether he regrets announcing his personal choice to the world, full of gullible fans who might treat his endorsement as a diktat from a higher power. No matter how many times he qualifies his decision, or clarifies it as one for only himself. The filmmaker doesn’t pose a question on the science (or the lack of it) behind the decision. Like Djokovic in a tennis match, all we get is an unfeeling, fiercely determined man, trying to stay in the game long enough. Probably a product of the premium access, a film can also choose only to be this (non)confrontational.Novak Djokovic is a fascinating subject for a documentary film. Arguably the greatest tennis player to have walked the planet, even after a record-breaking 24 Grand Slams (the most by a men’s player), he still acts like he has a chip on his shoulder. Holding an edge on both of his fiercest rivals – Nadal and Federer, Djokovic never quite got a unanimous praise as them. There’s almost always an asterisk next to Djokovic’s reputation as an ‘idol’, unlike Federer and Nadal, who have managed to maintain a largely clean image. Djokovic has always been known for his controversial celebrations, his bitter post-match interviews, and some perceived hostility in more than a handful of press conferences.He’s a complex character: without Federer’s sophistication, or Nadal’s authenticity, Djokovic has usually found himself on the wrong side of popularity contests. In a sport intensely hierarchical as tennis, Djokovic usually chose to irreverently express himself. Whether it was imitating other players, or simply just refusing to concede against the crowd favourites. It’s surely one facet of his unpopularity, given the number of times he beat Federer and Nadal during the 2010s, something Hehir’s film argues, but it’s only one part of the larger picture. A still from ‘Novak Djokovic: The Wolf in Winter’. Photo: Screengrab from YouTube.Djokovic is combative as a person, something that can have an adverse effect as a public personality. Mocking crowds, responding to murmured speculation on his injuries on social media, taking medical time-outs in crucial points (some consider it legal, but unsportsmanlike), there’s very little that the tennis great leaves unsaid. One wonders if in his late 30s, he can be less reactive, especially in contrast to Federer and Nadal’s wise-and-stoic chats with the media. Unfortunately, Hehir’s film doesn’t grill him enough, piercing him with inquiries, pointed questions and counter-arguments. The sense I got was Djokovic was given his space to say his piece and nobody challenged him. Or the follow-ups were mostly edited out of the film. His ability to morph the crowd’s hostility towards him and support for his opponent into fuel for himself is boiled down to his Serbian heritage. Growing up during the Balkan wars, he talks about the concept of ‘Inat’, which loosely translates to — stubborn defiance against impossible odds. It was the word that most Serbians stood by as they were attacked by NATO during the 1990s. A lot of his grit is attributed to growing up in a family that borrowed money from loan sharks and put their entire livelihood on the line. A stunning anecdote is that in an evening before shipping him off to Germany for training, Djokovic’s father called the family around for a huddle, put down 10 notes of the local currency and said that’s all they have as a family. Novak says the image instantly communicated the stakes to him, and he immediately became a more mature version of himself. There’s also the agonising question to Djokovic about whether he’s considering retirement. I can see why that might grate anyone’s nerves, especially if they’re consistently making Semis and Finals at majors. As a viewer, I was annoyed by the mere handful of times I heard the question being posed to Djokovic, I can only wonder how he feels about it. I’m sure he feels hurt, slighted, disrespected; which he manifests into inspiration for the next match. But by the end, having won the Gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics against World no. 1 Carlos Alcaraz, one would imagine he would become less agitated about discussing his retirement. By the end of Hehir’s film, I found a kid inventing his own peaks, and taking every shrug from an onlooker and turning it into fuel to play one more point, game, set, match and grand slam. He almost seemed like he was trying to fill some void within, with his dominance in tennis. No one should tell anyone when to retire, especially not the greatest men’s player to have ever played. But I kept wondering when Djokovic would feel satisfied – when the purported ‘outsider’ becomes an insider? According to Hehir’s film, Djokovic still hasn’t crystallised it for himself — or he doesn’t wish to share (unlike his plans to not vaccinate). How a person exits the stage, says a lot about them. Djokovic has spent such a large part using antagonism as a fuel for life, can he even adjust to an ordinary life after this? Most films manage to locate the person within the myth. I thought Hehir’s film blew the man up to a mythical status. He didn’t need to, his tennis achievements already do that. A film that used its access spectacularly in my books was Alex Gibney’s The Armstrong Lie (2013). Making a film on the now-disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, Gibney had to pivot overnight, after the doping scandal broke out. It showcases a filmmaker grappling with the integrity of his bond with his subject (Armstrong had spent the entire film refuting the murmurs around the doping allegations against him). Hehir’s film, like most feature-film profiles, is polite to a fault.A film on Novak Djokovic deserved to be more contentious and bold, like the cross-court winner he hit in the 2012 US Open against Federer, when he was two points from defeat. Unfortunately, The Wolf in Winter ends up mistiming the juicy points of a controversial lone wolf. And with a subject with Djokovic’s richness – it might be a serious unforced error.*Novak Djokovic: The Wolf in Winter is streaming on Amazon Prime Video