Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story is a biographical documentary released by Netflix on 11 August 2022. From Pulse Films, a division of VICE Media Group and Flower Films comes a raw and immersive feature film that follows competitive skateboarding icon Leo Baker in the lead-up to the 2020 Olympics.
The documentary film has a runtime of about 1 hour and 13 minutes. Produced by Alex Schmider (Changing the Game, Disclosure, Framing Agnes) and directed by Nicola Marsh and Giovanni Reda, follows the skateboarding athlete over the past few years till the present day.
Netflix’s synopsis of the film reads:
Celebrated skateboarder Leo Baker shares the details of his rise to fame and the clash between his career and self-discovery as a trans man.
-Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story Review Contain Some Spoilers-
Stay on Board is Leo’s journey balancing the gendered world of sports, transition, society, and skate culture, which ultimately leads him to the most punk thing imaginable. As he faces the sharpening stakes and intensifying disconnect between how the world sees him and who he knows himself to be, the pressure to keep on the course or be true to himself comes to a career and a life-defining turning point.
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The film starts off with some old footage of Lacey Baker, which was Leo’s birth name, where (s)he is a teenager competing in various skateboarding contests or just hanging out with other skaters in the park. And like many of us, Leo can’t look at these clips from his teen years, not because they are cringe but because that feels conflicting to their identity.
We get to know that Leo is trans and only called so within in close group of friends. Meanwhile, in the skating world, he is known as Lacey Baker, a female skateboarding athlete. The film is shot in 2019 and at that time he hadn’t come out to the public about his identity and went along with what was already been imposed for years.
But now it has started to feel like he is living a split life and is afraid to come out because he thinks his career would be over. Especially, when skateboarding has been added to the Olympics for the first time and Leo was selected for the women’s team, coming out might hamper everything. Also, when you are so well known in your field, the stakes are pretty high.
As the pressure for the Olympics 2020 intensifies, contrasted with how he is viewed professionally and how he wants to identify as a trans nonbinary individual, becomes unbearable for him. We also get to know how difficult his childhood has been with drug addict parents and being put up in foster care, skateboarding has been the sole happy outlet for him.
It also helped his family financially, in the early years when they got back with their mother Donna and started competing in professional competitions. But (s)he was the poster girl with long hair and cool boarding tricks for most of the part. As soon as Lacey started to become more like Leo, sponsorships dropped, as they wanted a particular image for their brands.
Having seen all that already, at a young age, we can understand the anxiety and distress, Leo must be going through which finally led him to quit the Olympics team and focus on transitioning to his true self. And with the pandemic, he got the time to fully embrace and become confident in who they identify as.
Summing Up: Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story
The Netflix documentary is definitely a captivating story and Leo also recognises how important it is to share his story of embracing and persevering, to create a life that you want for yourself. It could definitely help many other people going through the same thing. The film also features some of the best-known faces of the skateboarding world, like Tony Hawk.
Also, if you wait till the end and watch the credits roll, you will hear a sweet melodious song which is written sung by Leo Baker himself. The song is called Hold Me Till We’re Home and it’s truly a nice musical score to end on.
Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story is now streaming on Netflix.
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