Younger: thoughtful documentary tracks the lives of older athletes

As a summer of sports crowds our screens, with Wimbledon and the European Championship passing the baton to the Olympic Games, Younger documents the personal lives of four female athletes over 60, celebrating another side to a traditionally youth-focused sporting world. 

Metal clanks in Younger’s opening scene as Joylyn, a lifelong runner, cumbersomely unloads medals, plaques and trophies won from tournaments. Red ribbons cover the floor, entangled as if to form one colossal achievement. Up next are Dorothy, Sue, and Noel, who we learn picked up their respective sports midlife. The four endearing women share anecdotes of their wins, losses, and friendships formed through their love of sports in interviews that are continually intercut with images from the athletes’ past. But Younger is no exercise in nostalgia, it looks forward, exploring its subjects’ next goals.

Co-director Danielle Sellwood’s handheld camera offers a cosy intimacy, giving the sense we are side by side with her subjects. It’s an undeniably pleasant experience, but at times excessively so (a contemplative piano instrumental feels a tad overstretched). It’s a documentary that knows its strengths, and plays to them, even if it sometimes leans too hard into sentimentality. 

Younger follows a fairly conventional documentary format, but is reminiscent of Kim Hopkins’ documentary A Bunch of Amateurs (2022) in its hopeful representation of its idiosyncratic subjects. It positions an otherwise sidelined group as formidable champions. 

Beautiful stills of the older athletes in competition, taken by director Alex Rotas, round off Younger, a message that these women are here for the long run. 

► Younger is in UK cinemas now.