Heart of Invictus is a mess – but at least Prince Harry talks about someone else for a change

Prince Harry's new documentary series, Heart of Invictus, goes behind the games and the stories of the competitors. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION:

Spotify may have called time on its relationship with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, but Netflix still believes in Harry and Meghan, with whom it signed a US$100 million (NZ$168 million) production deal in 2020. Yet, to date, the streamer’s alliance with the Sussex’s Archewell Productions has had mixed results.

Last year’s Harry & Meghan documentary drew eyeballs while having little new to say about the Sussexes or the rift between them and the Windsors. Then came the syrupy Live to Lead, a job lot of hagiographies of already over-exposed figures such as environmentalist Greta Thunberg and former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. It was “inspirational” telly by numbers and suggested that, a mere two projects in, Harry and Meghan were already winging it.

One issue with Live to Lead, was that Sussex involvement was confined to a brief introduction at the start of each instalment. Their latest Netflix collaboration, Heart of Invictus, is a five-part documentary celebration of Harry’s Invictus Games for injured military veterans directed by Oscar-winner Orlando von Einsiedel.

Heart of Invictus’ problem is that it is trying to be two things at once. Harry and Meghan understand that their involvement is the big draw with their Archewell output. They are the brand. And so Harry, founding patron of Invictus, dutifully submits for an interview, “sensitive dad” beard primped and ready to go.

“My name is Harry,” he says in a conversation conducted against the now-familiar backdrop of the California home he shares with Meghan and their children. “I’m a dad of two, I have a couple of dogs ... there are lots of hats one wears. Today is all about Invictus.”

It’s not all about Invictus, though, is it? How can it be? While the struggles of the ex-military personnel profiled in the first instalment are hugely emotive, they ultimately and unfortunately function as filler between the Harry stuff – and it looks like everyone involved knows it.

That said, it’s impossible not to be moved by Tom Folwell, a former army Sapper who lost his legs to an IED in Afghanistan and for whom wheelchair rugby represented an outlet for his pain and anger.

We also meet Gabe George, a retired US Navy corpsman who lives in constant pain after losing an arm in a random road accident. Doctors have told him his agony is similar to that of childbirth. “You’re in labour over and over, and you’re never going to deliver this baby”. His life is bleak. Nonetheless, he has found solace by competing in archery at the Invictus tournament, the most recent chapter of which took place in The Hague last year.

But if these and other testimonies yank at the heartstrings, Heart of Invictus only really pops when Harry is on screen. In old pre-beard footage, we see him reflect on his 10 weeks of service in Afghanistan and his anger at being pulled out from the frontline after news of his presence leaked.

Prince Harry on patrol through the deserted town of Garmisir close to FOB (forward operating base) Delhi, where he was posted in the Helmand province, on January 2, 2008 in Southern Afghanistan. Photo / Getty Images

In the present day, he is just as thoughtful – and it is an undeniable novelty to hear him talking about someone other than himself for once. He speaks with feeling about his flight home from Helmand Province, where he encountered the true price of conflict. “The curtain blew open – all you could see was the air hospital, three soldiers wrapped in plastic and their bodies in pieces… I’m now seeing the real cost of war,” he says.

It’s an impressive interview – but such is Harry’s aura that the suffering of the soldiers featured elsewhere in the documentary feels like placeholder content. This will likely be an issue for the Sussexes as they move forward with their Netflix deal (their next project is a drama about Miss Havisham from Great Expectations). Netflix has paid not for their thoughts and insights but their star power. And in Heart of Invictus, the mix of humanitarian documentary and royalty-watching never coheres. It’s a well-intentioned mishmash but a mishmash all the same.