Make Us Dream (2021)
Director and Co-Editor
104’ Feature Documentary
In modern football, Steven Gerrard is a rarity––a superstar player who stayed loyal to his hometown club. He became perhaps the greatest player in the history of Liverpool FC but did so at a point when success and trophies were on the wane, and it became his personal mission to lift the famous club back to the top. But that loyalty, which raised him to God-like status with Liverpool fans, could be an unbearable burden, bringing with it a profound sense of responsibility to live up to their and his own expectations.
The film is a personal story of profound highs and lows, set in the highly pressured, ruthless world of professional football, at a time when the values of the game were radically shifting. It offers a penetrating insight into the experience of one of the best-known English Footballers of modern times and the pressures, both external and internal, that both drove him forward to glory and defeated him.
“For more engaged viewers and interested parties, this can be as impactful as Shakespearean tragedy. There’s a suggestion in Make Us Dream that he was a man out of step with the mercenary, opportunistic world of contemporary football. But the loyalty and steeliness that carried him through the worst of times is as remarkable and defining as anything he did on the pitch. ☆☆☆☆”
“A revelatory documentary about the Liverpool stalwart, whose explanation of his career ups and downs make for fascinating viewing ☆☆☆☆”
“What emerges in Make Us Dream feels rather like an audience invitation to a therapy session. Always painfully candid, you visualise Gerrard speaking from the couch of the psychiatrist whose help he admits seeking. You imagine he must have agreed to the film to continue an eternal quest to make sense of and validate his key decisions and defining moments.”
“Produced by the makers of ‘Amy’ and ‘Senna’, the film dwells far more on the struggle and fight to lead an institution towards their ultimate goal than on any successes achieved along the way, and if anything you come away from it even more convinced that no Liverpool footballer has ever had to shoulder the burden that Gerrard did over 17 seasons in the first-team at Anfield. His story is very much the club’s modern story, as they battle to stay relevant in a football world that was changing around their feet. It becomes clear how much of a toll that takes on a man who is far more complex than he’s often portrayed. Compelling.”
