The Brittney Griner Story (documentary) ★★★½

Seeing a sensational story such as the titular one, which you followed closely on the news and social media, retold as a feature documentary holds its own fascination. Observing what is included and what is left out, how the individuals involved look back at their experiences, and how current events become history, is in itself material for a documentary. Alexandria Stapleton is both conscious and wary of this aspect that shapes her intense inspection of Russia’s detainment of WNBA star Brittney Griner. Speculation and sensationalism are absent from Stapleton’s tightly wound reconstruction of a case that seems to beg for both. Layered beneath is an interrogation of the official occupation of personal tragedies, commodification of trauma, and the blurry line between victimization and vilification. 

Resisting the reductive framing of high-profile athletes turned public figures, the narrative arc opens with a concise compilation of the six-time WNBA All-Star and Olympic gold medalist’s childhood in Texas and meteoric rise to fame. The latter curiously contrasts the pay disparities that push even high-ranking female athletes to seek overseas contracts to make ends meet. These sexist structures situating her ordeal within the inherent inequalities of professional sports mirror the social media backlash Griner faced after her release. Conservative voices claimed the white cis-male ex-marine Paul Whelan should have been freed instead. These juxtapositions sharpen the film’s critique of systems that exploit and expend human beings in pursuit of profit and political leverage. 

It’s a cruel twist to the nerve-wracking struggle that began with Griner’s arrest at Moscow airport in 2022. In her hand luggage, she carried cartridges containing trace amounts of cannabis oil, medically prescribed for pain treatment. Russian authorities jumped at the chance to secure a political pawn Putin could use to taunt the US. A sham trial saw Griner sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. Meanwhile, her wife Cherelle advocated tirelessly for her release and political intervention in the case that instantly became a media sensation. Despite the public attention, it took nearly 300 harrowing days until Griner was swapped in a prisoner exchange against US detainee Viktor Bout, an arms dealer going by the thriller-worthy nickname “Merchant of Death”.

Archival footage, some of it never seen before, personal artifacts, Griner’s and her wife’s personal recollections, and insider interviews, among them the Russian lawyers taking on personal risks to defend Griner, fuse into a meticulous excavation of identity, inequality, and political tactics. Stapleton unpacks the public rhetoric engulfing Griner’s arrest and subsequent negotiations for her release, contextualizing her plight within a larger discourse on wrongful detentions, media misinformation, and race and gender politics. What emerges is a portrait of an athlete maligned as a political trading card and international irritant. This systematic distortion obscured the brutal reality of her confinement and the blatant injustice of her arrest, from which she reclaimed her career and personal life. 

Personally attending the documentary’s premiere at the 42nd Sundance Film Festival, Griner points out her experience’s implications on international detention practices and civil liberties. This highlights the urgency of a work allowing for a deeper look, not only at the method behind the basketball superstar’s arrest and nearly 10-month-long imprisonment, but the factors that led to her playing abroad and the media aggression following her release. Oscillating between introspection and external reality, the gripping chronicle ponders the worth—professional, personal, and political—granted to a queer woman of color. It’s a manual for geopolitical power games and a frightening account of how human individuals become instruments of opposing ideologies and political posturing.