Croatian Australain tennis legend Jelena Dokic faced battles on court and off, and this new and uncompromising film takes a hard look at both. Mainly the latter.
How to watch Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story in Australia
Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story is screening exclusively in Australian cinemas now.
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What is Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story about?
Directed by sports journalist Jessica Halloran and Ivan O’Mahoney, and based on Dokic’s best-selling 2017 autobiography, which was co-written with the former, Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story looks at the tennis star’s impressive career, sure, but also focuses on her struggles behind the scenes. In particular the horrendous mental and physical abuse she suffered at the hands of her father and coach, the famously volatile Damir, whose courtside outbursts saw him banned from attending more than one competition. It’s not an easy watch, charting Dokic’s eventual escape from her father’s torments, but taking pains to depict the long-term trauma the former number four player in the world still deals with today.
The cast of Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story
Jelena Dokic, obviously; fellow players Mark Philippoussis (who was Dokic’s partner when they won the Hopman Cup), Pam Shriver, and Lindsay Davenport; Damir Dokic via archival material; and Martina Hingis, who was ranked number one when the relatively unknown Dokic spectacularly thrashed her at Wimbeldon in 1999.
Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story trailer
Why we’re excited about Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story
The avareage sports documentary or biography is a relatively hagiographic affair; it’s rare that one custs through the surface to deliver something of substance. This is definitely one of them: an unflinching look at horrific familial abuse and the toll it takes. You don’t need to be a tennis fan to see this one; the sport is very much secondary to the story being told.
