Everest without Oxygen: The Jamie Vardy Story Told but Untold
Film Title: “Untold UK Jamie Vardy”
Dir: Jesse Vile
Release Date: Debut on Netflix May 12, 2026
Review by Antony Cirocco
As part of Netflix’s Untold UK stream comes the new documentary “Jamie Vardy”. Now, if you never watch football or follow the English Premier League, then you will probably have never heard of Jamie Vardy. Your kids might have told you about Messi, the famous Argentine player or even Christian Renaldo, formerly of Manchester United, or, wait, even David Beckham, the guy married to one of the Spice Girls, who is also a famous footballer who previously played at Manchester United. However, you probably don’t know who Jamie Vardy is. It’s probably because he doesn’t come attached to a famous footballing franchise, not Liverpool, not Arsenal…he’s just Jamie from somewhere in Sheffield…not exactly the excitement capital of the Universe…but in a way that is what makes this story great. Jamie is not a clone of any other great footballer; he’s just Jamie from Sheffield, who goes on to conquer one of the toughest football leagues in the world, the English Premier League.
This is a character study that looks at the life and times of Jamie from Sheffield as he deals with normalcy in working-class England beset by mediocrity and indifference all around him. He’s not feeding the starving millions or planning a trip to the moon; he’s just living one day at a time, which is something most of us can associate with.
By the age of 20 he was an abject failure, he had not made it to his beloved team Sheffield Wednesday (that’s the name of a football team in England, just go with it) and there were no signs on the horizon of Jamie making it to the English Premiere League either, his career was ostensibly dead in the water, he had been written off, but there was something stirring within that kept that dream alive.
This documentary is bland and unengaging; the interviews with Jamie are lively and interesting, but it’s not groundbreaking stuff, but it’s worth a watch. This is one for those who love football. For those lovers of hardcore documentarians, who might think that the Documentary is an exclusive art form, just for the ‘intelligentsia’, you need to know that there are many documentaries out there that appeal to other people. In this case, the 39 million fans of the World Cup in 2026 (in England alone) might be interested in hearing about Jamie (from Sheffield) and his journey from Stockbridge FC in the 8th tier of the English National League System. For those people, this could be seen as a cracking documentary and a good yarn…it’s not, but the potential was definitely there, and it is still worth a watch.
Vile, the director's last name, is not new to documentary, but this is not his best work. I previously reviewed his earlier documentary “The Diamond Heist”, produced by Guy Ritchie; this was a better documentary; this one is still very good.
This film arrived at the beginning of the World Cup, at a time when football fever is at an all-time high, but there is no timely news relevance in the release or timing of this documentary; it’s just riding the wave of football euphoria sweeping the globe, good on him.
It’s well made; there is a good use of archival footage, and there is observational footage of his prior coaches, managers and team owners. The snippets of his working-class heritage were interesting in terms of forming his back story.
There is no great creative drive in this film; it’s reasonably low budget for a sports documentary and conventional in its storytelling. There is nothing special in terms of its visual storytelling, with the standard B-roll over interviews, is nothing new.
The interviews of his mates at the pub drinking leaned away from getting clean interviews that delved into the story of Jamie. It has to be said, interviews in plenary with a number of mates inevitably mean they are all going to agree with each other, and there is no contrast and contradiction in the answers, as everyone prefers to give each other the nod and get on with drinking; it’s not a good move from the director.
The edit is good; it features a lot of images of Jamie as a young man asleep or hungover, as he was, for all intents and purposes, a partygoer and a dag and the edit reflected his lifestyle. Much of the story of his early career was told by his first agent (also his current agent), and while this was interesting, there is a clear conflict of interest there.
There is one interview angle which grated on me, and impacted my viewing experience, and it’s where the interviewee is constantly looking into camera, possibly looking through a teleprompter-like setup. It’s unnecessary and a fad I am happy to go without going forward; it’s overdone.
Jamie had a stellar career in English football, and that should be celebrated, but there is a lack of balance in this documentary. There was a racism controversy that was never really dealt with any sincerity, and to a degree, this documentary is absent of all the hard work in training that Pro Footballers put in to become the great players they are. The picture presented is that Jamie was a midweek boozer and party animal on the weekend and still managed to play like a champion; it’s not possible. This documentary assumes that late nights and all-day benders are possible whilst being an elite athlete…nah. The film delves into how Jamie attacked his drinking with his manager and, to a degree, with his mates, but the film starts with Jamie’s first interview for the film, and he is joking about drinking, normalising his drinking toward the end of his career; it’s a contradictory move from the director. The filmmaker, Vile, should have done more to protect Vardy’s image and accurately portray his struggle.
This is a good film, but it’s cheap and at times sensationalist and then in the same breath, conservative in that the interviews lack depth; we learn very little about Jamie, the hard work and dedication it takes to be an elite football player. His talent seems to emerge out of childhood and continue whilst he parties: “Vardy is having a party, bring your Vodka and your Charlie” as the crowd would sing. It is a fun documentary though, and if you push the lack of editorial balance aside, Jamie's story is worth learning about.
Vile’s telling of Vardy’s biography sets a low bar for cheap and cheerful documentaries; it’s not even close to Asif Kapadia’s “Kenny Dalglish”, which has raw emotion and a cultural depth that Vile’s film only dreams of. Not that it’s a competition. If Vile were to make another football documentary, though, on the current career trajectory it’s going to be much better than this one and well worth a watch; I look forward to it.
This is a great watch; it’s a 2 out of 5 for me.
Review by Antony Cirocco
"Untold UK: Jamie Vardy" Documentary Trailer on YouTube here -
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