We Went To FIFA's Movie About Itself, And No One Else Did

It is a saying, among people who say things like this, that all good journalism begins with a question. For the better part of a week, as I watched FIFA crumble amid unsealed indictments, a resounding re-election, and then its despot's sudden resignation, a question came together and looped endlessly through my brain: "Who on earth is going to go see United Passions?"

United Passions is a $30 million dollar film about heroic men in suits having press conferences and striking marketing deals; it was funded largely by FIFA in an effort to glorify their own founding and history, and opened wide in the United States this weekend at what was both the worst and funniest possible moment. Anyway, it opened… what's the exact opposite of wide? According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film played ten theaters across the United States, earning a total of $607 on Friday and Saturday.

I suppose I should get this out of the way upfront: I contributed nine dollars to that take. Here in Los Angeles, the Laemmle in North Hollywood was the only theater brave enough to offer masochists, ironists, and masochistic ironists a chance to gaze upon FIFA's masterwork. And so, voice recorder in hand, I decided to head down and find out just what sort of soccer diehards, nihilists, and dead-ender Gerard Depardieu devotees would take time out of the day for this bizarre piece of sporting propaganda.

And yet, as I turned the corner into Theater 6, it soon became clear that my plans were compromised. Despite the purity of my intentions, I was about to become a part of the story.

"Oh please don't laugh," asked Daina Beth Solomon, a reporter with Reuters, who'd come to the film with the same goal in mind. As a more punctual individual, she was able to get the drop on me. She asked me why I was at United Passions, and the answer turned out to be "the same reason you are."

After assuring her that my chuckling was merely a recognition of the absurdity of our situation, I provided a few quotes. How could I not? The crowd at this particular afternoon showing consisted of myself, Daina, her photographer, and a single additional soul who escaped before I could talk to him. The only thing to do, in the sad media circle-jerk that this film had created, was to rely on one another. There was no one else to talk to, because no one else cared.

"They also were the only theater that showed The Interview," Solomon informed me, confirming that Laemmle NoHo was to be applauded for its bravery and independence, if not necessarily its judgment. "Maybe there'll be more people at the evening showings."

All plucky optimism aside, once it became clear that I was not likely to return home with a great deal of audience reaction, there was no choice but to take my seat and make do with the movie. I can tell you that Leander Schaerlaeckens' review in this space is far more palatable than the film itself. And yet I couldn't help but realize, as I watched Dr. Alan Grant command a group of lizards far more terrifying than any velociraptor, that perhaps I'd had the wrong query all along. The question wasn't who would see United Passions after all the layers of scandal that have unfolded in recent days. The question, instead, was who the hell was going to see it otherwise?

At least now, the film can be a useful historical artifact. How kind it was, truly, for FIFA to provide a 110-minute statement of its own towering and clueless hubris, timed so perfectly with their own long overdue reckoning. This is a feature built to be ridiculed by critics, snarked at by writers (hello!), and used as fodder for John Oliver's latest diatribe. Given all that has happened, it would be hard to blame the distributors if they rebranded it as Soccer Schadenfreude: The Movie! and at least attempted to recoup some of their investment ironically.

But as I watched one scene after another unfold… in a boardroom, on an airplane, in a bar lounge, really anywhere but the pitch, it occurred to me that perhaps United Passions was saying more than its financiers ever intended. This is Draft Day for the soccer set, the kind of movie that gets made when the wealthy men behind the scenes actually begin to believe that they are as interesting as the game itself. Of course, a couple of hours spent watching Tim Roth cut deals with Adidas leaves no doubt that they are very wrong about this, and that they are in fact less interesting than almost anything else on earth. The timing of United Passions is laughable not only because it comes on the tail end of a terrific scandal, but also because it leads directly into the Women's World Cup. Who could possibly choose to watch this film, when there are actual soccer matches to see instead?

On my way out, I stopped to chat with Jordan Melton, one of the theater's employees, in a last futile attempt to figure out what brought United Passions to this lone Los Angeles outpost. "I've worked for this company for almost ten years, and I still haven't figured out the process for what (film) goes where," he said. "It's very strange." What's not strange in the slightest is that this engagement will be a short one; a flyer in the lobby advertised that the movie will play "This Week Only!"

And so, my quest to find meaning in a rather unique box office bomb took a rather introspective turn. Who on earth wants to watch FIFA make an absolute mockery of itself? The answer is…me, I suppose, and two people from Reuters, and that one mystery man. I'm not sure who made the worse decision, here, FIFA or me. After all, they had $30 million to burn, and presumably no better way to spend it than on making an unwatchable film. I do not have that kind of money. Anyway, if I'd really wanted to watch a group of loathsome, entitled narcissists pat themselves on the back, I could just have spent my $9 on Entourage.