Picabo

Pretty good. Worth a watch.

I know nothing about this sport and never really watch it. Of course you may see a few seconds during an Olympic then watch something else. The danger involved here is too much. I don't like such sports. So the tension was a bit too high as you KNOW they will show all the crashes and injuries as they do in ALL such docs. You get the most important parts of the career which involves injuries. But luckily it stays overall upbeat. The cool music and relaxed interview setting makes this a fun watch that I enjoyed quite a bit.

Lindsey Vonn interviews Picabo and we see great recordings from her career where she won silver and gold in the Olympics until the crashes made her unable to compete on this level and she ended up just making it down the hill in her last Olympic ever in Salt Lake City. Usually these type of docs about female athletes can get a bit too fake with "she had to fight her way to the top as boys/men didn't believe she could do it". Luckily the doc stays out of any such fake storylines and tries to instead be a basic overview of her career. There are some topics like her initial fight with boys, her huge ski fights vs. Europeans, and how she came out of nothing and made it. But it's kept light and not Americanized to extremes. Overall the themes she fights against is her leg injuries and then her diabetic dad who often didn't take care of his condition and got aggressive with Picabo and her mom. Even injuring her mom very seriously at times. And Picabo post her career pushed him down her stairs after he attacked her which made her lose her sponsor deals. Again unfair as he was the one who attacked her and she was just defending herself nothing more. But as she was keeping his condition and aggression hidden from the public once the story came out it made her seem like the aggressor. It makes sense as she was basically lying to the public for years about her parents and no one knew her dad was this way. Besides this the doc is a basic overview. Not really focused on her friendships or stupidities as she is being interviewed in it so clearly they wanted to hide away all drama. They vaguely refer to her being kicked off team USA as a teenager for being "a rebel". But they refuse to ever explain why she was kicked off the team or how her personality ruined anything else in her life. She's just "a rebel". But you can be right or wrong. You may be a good rebel or a bad rebel. We never find out if she was right or wrong. We just know something happened to her because of her personality. I assume the coaches were overall fair? But maybe not.

Before Lindsey Vonn, Picabo Street held the record for more World Cup wins and Olympic medal that any American skier, male or female. She also was Lindsey Vonn's idol. So, it's more than fitting that Vonn produced and co-directed the definitive documentary about Picabo's life.

Picabo Street began her life as one of eleven children born to a family of modest means in rural Idaho. From a young age she showed the natural talent, fire and competitive spirit that would take to the top of Podiums across the skiing world. Filled with terrific TV footage of her triumphs and disasters, in the course of her career Street tore every ligament in her knees and broke all major bones in her body. The grit and sacrifice it took to come back from each injury are just as impressive as her racing victories.

The documentary pulls no punches and deals with the dysfunction and domestic abuse in Street's family. Street's father who was her greatest booster and support was also a physically abusive alcoholic, diabetic who would often get violent with his wife and children, behavior that culminated in Street's arrest for domestic abuse by dumb, overzealous cops, when in fear for her own safety, she defended herself and her children from her raging father

But "Picabo" really shines in the scenes where she and Vonn share their experiences that only two champions like these two elite athletes have in common. This is rarified air. That, and the footage of them free skiing together, swooping down the mountain without the pressure of competition are pure joy.