Unbreakable: The Jelana Dokic Story a hard-hitting tale of remarkable real-life resilience

The extraordinary journey of Aussie tennis prodigy Jelena Dokic in suffering under and standing up to her tyrant coach father is as heartbreaking as it is inspiring, writes Leigh Paatsch.

From a remarkable tale of resilience from an Aussie tennis champ to an unexpected reunion of two beloved actors, there’s plenty to see on the big screen this week

UNBREAKABLE: THE JELENA DOKIC STORY (M)

Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story is a tale of survival.

Directors: Jessica Halloran, Ivan O’Mahoney

Rating:★★★★

Playing the game was easy, but not the never-ending grudge match afterwards

Imagine this.

You are 17 years old. Female. Already one of the best in the world at what you do.

If the same rapid rate of progress continues, you will end up being an all-time great in your field.

Sadly, no such fate awaited Jelena Dokic.

By the time she had reached her early twenties, this remarkable tennis prodigy could barely muster the will to hit a single ball.

However, as we come to understand all too well in the compelling new documentary Unbreakable, this was not just another promising sports career flaming out by way of too-much-too-soon syndrome.

No, this was a sensitive, vulnerable young person buckling under the weight of too much of everything. For far too long.

And the person who kept adding to that physical and psychological load, until Jelena Dokic could simply carry no more? Her father.

These days, mention of the name Damir Dokic instantly summons an image of one of the worst parental figures to ever (dis)grace the sidelines of professional sports.

However, throughout his gifted daughter’s meteoric rise and inevitable fall, Damir was free to undermine and overwhelm his child at every turn. Often in full view of the world.

But that was just the ranting, raving, arm-waving Damir Dokic. When the world wasn’t looking, the real Damir Dokic exerted a vice-like grip upon every aspect of Jelena’s life.

Complete control was maintained with an unrelenting barrage of harsh words, withdrawn privileges and – if he was displeased with certain matchday outcomes – clenched fists.

Though drawing on the same gut-wrenching material that filled Jelena’s own book of the same name a few years back, Unbreakable powerfully and humanely courses deeper into its subject’s painful memories than before.

The doco’s principal advantage is that it is able to sync much of its archival footage to Jelena’s raw, emotion-charged recollections of what was happening at the time.

You will see matches where a frightened young woman is literally playing every second of a match at the highest intensity, just to avoid a beating hours later.

One interviewee here likens Jelena’s post-match press conferences to those of a frightened hostage reading out a prepared statement defending their captor.

The fear, the intimidation and the broken spirit is clearly evident. And yet, nobody came forward and did the right thing.

A cautionary tale, yes, but also one of inspiration, resilience and grace under the most personal pressure imaginable.

Unbreakable is in cinemas now for a limited season

HERE (M)

Forrest Gump co-stars Robin Wright and Tom Hanks reunite in Here.

Rating: ★★★

General release

Take a sharp left turn just before you get to that old saying ‘the camera never lies,’ and you will find yourself arriving at Here: a cinematic experiment in which the camera never moves. The goal here is to discover some truth about where we live our lives. To do so, acclaimed filmmaker Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future) fixes a camera in the one spot, and shows us everything that ever happened in this single location (a hectare or so in the US state of New Jersey, in case you were wondering). The time span covered begins when dinosaurs were still with us, and ends just after the Covid-19 pandemic left us. Thankfully, from about the 18th century onwards, the audience finds themselves in the lounge room of a house built on this site. Which means we will be meeting everyone who lived or visited there at some point. Though this is definitely an odd conceit for a movie, it begins to make perfect sense once we meet Richard (Tom Hanks) and Margaret (Robin Wright), soulmates destined to raise a family and ride out life’s rougher developments within these same four walls. While not all of the period-era makeovers are totally convincing – a lot of effects technology is used to keep Here visually consistent across its vast historical canvas – there can be no denying a lot of feeling and intelligence has been poured into this ambitious project. Co-stars Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly.

Australian horror movie The Moogai never quite lives up to its promise.

THE MOOGAI (M)

Rating: ★★

Selected cinemas

This tepid Australian-made exercise in psychological horror is not so much a slow-burn as a no-burn, consummately failing to elicit scares regularly. Shari Sebbens takes the lead role of Sarah, a woman slowly falling apart after giving birth to her second child. Untrustworthy memories linked to both her indigenous heritage and various people who may have contributed to her problematic past are clearly plaguing Sarah. However, with so many dead-end subplots and oddly incongruous visual flourishes crammed into the mix, the movie struggles to keep the viewer sincerely invested in the plight of its troubled protagonist. The gradual suggestion of a supernatural spirit hellbent on harming mother and child does faintly conjure a handful of inspired scenes in the final act. However, the wait for the filmmakers to finally cut loose with their best material will outlast the patience of most. An ungainly music soundtrack and some wonky performances in no way help the cause. Co-stars Meyne Wyatt, Bella Heathcote.

Originally published as Unbreakable: The Jelana Dokic Story a hard-hitting tale of remarkable real-life resilience