Snooker fans have waited a long time to see Ronnie O’Sullivan: The Edge of Everything and their patience has been rewarded because it is so much more than expected.
Cameras followed the Rocket closely in the build-up to the 2022 World Championship and throughout his campaign in Sheffield as he hunted down a record-equalling seventh title at the Crucible.
A behind-the-scenes, access-all-areas look at the GOAT preparing for the sport’s biggest event and then living through the iconic tournament was what appeared to be in the pipeline.
The Edge of Everything delivered what was promised on that front, but the film is a lot more than just documenting a snooker competition; it heads all the way back to the start of O’Sullivan’s epic career, unveiling the pain and torment he has dealt with and still struggles with at times now.
Many of the film’s most remarkable moments come from the relationship between O’Sullivan and his father, Ronnie Sr, with that thread running through the documentary to the brilliant climax.
The relationship between elite sportspeople and their fathers is often integral to their story. The recent David Beckham documentary made that clear, while the endlessly headline-grabbing involvement of John Fury in Tyson’s career continues to rumble on.
It is Beckham’s production company that is behind the O’Sullivan film, but this is very different to the enjoyable but relatively tepid PR exercise on the footballer. Equally, the father-son relationship is far from the same across the two pieces.
The Rocket’s relationship with his father is very different to most and The Edge of Everything does not shy away from the details of Ronnie Sr’s conviction for murder and how that left his young son as a huge fish in the snooker pond but struggling to keep swimming.
The man once known as the Essex Exocet says in one scene that he would be a ‘loser’ without the input of his dad and the push to make him the best player in the world from as young as nine years old has ultimately been successful.
There is no shortage of pain and torment, though, as illustrated in a tearjerking message from Ronnie’s mother Maria at one stage, remembering how she had to tell her son his father had been jailed.
Pain and torment are prevalent on the snooker side of things as well, with O’Sullivan living up to the title of the film by appearing very much on the edge during the World Championship final against Judd Trump.
What is going through a player’s head and what is being said behind dressing room doors have always been fascinations of snooker fans as the cueists sit silently in their chair before disappearing out of the arena. We are granted a look behind the curtain at both and it is intense.
As Trump fights back at O’Sullivan in the showpiece we are given a glimpse into what it is like when a snooker player says they are ‘gone’ and it looks like a bleak place to be.
O’Sullivan describes the World Championship as an ‘evil tournament’ earlier in the piece and it is hard to understand that phrasing at the time, but as we watch him start to unravel it begins to make sense.
Whenever the Rocket claims not to care about the sport, we can now clearly see that is untrue, but it also becomes very obvious why he tries not to hand over the fate of his feelings to snooker.
The intensity of the piece is increased by the brilliant addition of a microphone on O’Sullivan while he is playing, picking up every utterance while he’s in the arena, even to the point of his breathing.
The incredibly unique pressure of snooker is expertly shown in one scene of near silence as Ronnie tries to solve a puzzle at the table. Only his breathing and muttered frustrations can be heard as focus switches between his furrowed brow and a packed Crucible crowd.
We also get to listen to the emotional chat between O’Sullivan and Trump at the end of the final as they shared one of sport’s longest ever hugs and the Rocket’s emotions poured out.
This is very much a Ronnie O’Sullivan documentary, but anyone discovering snooker for the first time should leave with healthy respect for the mentally punishing game, so vividly represented.
If there is one thing lacking, and it is a minor gripe, but the fly-on-the-wall nature of much of the film means some things were brilliantly documented, but not questioned.
The memorably feisty interaction between O’Sullivan and referee Olivier Marteel during the final was shown in detail, but there was no further explanation from either man involved, leaving us to wonder exactly what sparked the row as confusion seemed to reign.
It is the tiniest complaint, though, of a film that does not lack insight into the man, his life and the game that has made him one of Britain’s most fascinating sportsmen.
The complexity and intensity of O’Sullivan and his sport will have you gripped throughout and if you like Ronnie Wood quoting Anton Chekov, well, it’s got that too.
Ronnie O’Sullivan: The Edge of Everything is available exclusively in cinemas across UK & Ireland on November 21 and launches on Prime Video on November 23.
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