THE true story behind Sneaker Wars: Adidas v. Puma (released on Wednesday, streaming now on Disney+) sounds like a very obvious plot for a made-for-TV movie. Two brothers from a small German town own a successful shoe factory, Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik, established in 1924. Their business thrives, helped enormously by being the first company strategically to put running shoes on athletes — among them the sprint champion Jesse Owens — at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
A catastrophic feud in 1948, however, led the Dassler brothers — Adi and Rudi — to split the factory in two and set up rival companies on opposite sides of town. Rudi’s business became Puma, and Adi’s was eponymously named Adidas. Both companies became sportswear giants, most notably because of their famous footwear.
Their unlikely story is told in this three-part series, with input from surviving members of the Dassler family, current employees, industry experts, and some of the big names in sport who have been sponsored by the brands, such as the Adidas ambassador David Beckham and the Puma representative Usain Bolt.
If you have an interest in fashion and popular culture, then this is fun viewing, albeit a little shallow in places. The most interesting part of the story — the rift between the brothers and the catalyst for the founding of these two rival companies — is not really addressed in any detail. Despite speculation, the exact nature of their feud remains a mystery. We do know that they were never reconciled in this life. In a bitter mirroring of the way in which their feud split an entire town, the Dassler brothers are buried at opposite ends of Herzogenaurach Cemetery.
Ruth and Boaz (Netflix, Friday) is another biblical drama spawned by the success of The Chosen, the hugely popular series about the life of Jesus, now into its fifth season. Ruth and Boaz features a talented cast with good chemistry and a slick soundtrack, but it has a fluffy feel to it, evocative of the Hallmark channel rather than Netflix — an unseriousness that is not helped by the cheesy narration.
It is a post-modern retelling of the biblical story of the Moabite widow Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi. Moab is Atlanta, Ruth is a singer, and a fatal car-jacking is the reason that the two women flee to Naomi’s homeland, reimagined from Judah to Tennessee.
At the heart of the book of Ruth is the promise of redemption through trusting in God: a story of love and new life triumphing over the hopelessness of grief and despair. But it is also a lesson about loving the stranger.
A biblical story about the complexities of our treatment of people who are foreign to us is still resonant — perhaps now more so than ever.
