Megan Rapinoe wanted the documentary chronicling her early life through her prestigious soccer career to be “something different.”
While speaking with TheWrap at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival, the “Rapinoe” subject and director Rebeca Huntt explained their approach to the project. They both agreed early on that they wanted things to feel different, and Rapinoe knew that after years of being interviewed for her performances on the pitch and activism off it, that difference came in the time the pair spent together and by being “prompted in the right way.”
“The questions were different,” Rapinoe said. “I think that was the big thing. I think I was crying the first time that we talked. As soon as we met, I think we both wanted something different, and to go to a different level and talk about my career and my life in the ways that mattered to us the most. I know for me personally, I don’t think the best things that I’ve ever done and the most important things are what I’ve done on the field. And I feel like for Rebecca, she looked at me and said, ‘OK, that’s the vehicle, but like there’s other stuff here that I’m interested in,’ and so right away I think we connected on that.”
She added: “I feel like you were embedded in so many ways, and then I trusted you, and you trusted me, and I wanted to go there, but also you have to be prompted in the right way, and you have to have the right vision, and Rebecca had that. It made it really easy for me to tell just a really human, real story of what it was like to experience my life and with my family. I think they felt really comfortable, as well. I think you’ve got like a really interesting, raw, emotional version of everybody.”
TheWrap’s reviewer Chase Hutchinson agreed that the documentary does not feel like a run-of-the-mill look into a stellar athlete’s life. He wrote that rather than “shallow insights,” the doc dives deep into “the tension and the complexity of its subject.”
“The film feels aware of its own limitations, pondering how we frequently see only what a noteworthy figure wants us to see, and how a star can find their way back to who they are outside the bubble of fame,” Hutchinson wrote. “It features Rapinoe speaking candidly about the challenges she’s had and, in one more fascinatingly vulnerable moment near the end, turning the camera on herself.”
“Measured but also honest, ‘Rapinoe’ brings emotions to the surface that its subject has been sublimating to survive,” the review continued. “Even as there is still much we don’t see of Rapinoe, Huntt’s compassionate yet piercing eye gives us a fuller look at who she is than ever before.”
