The Olympics are coming, and coming to television, which means that soon we’ll be seeing, along with cute little spots on la vie Parisienne , a panoply of short informational films on (mostly) American athletes, introducing us to their families or childhood dreams or tragedies overcome, in order that we may invest more fully in their quests for gold. If you are looking for a deeper, more thoughtful, less facile curtainraiser, may I recommend “Simone Biles Rising,” a genuinely inspiring two-part documentary premiering Wednesday on Netflix — to be accurate, this is the first half of what will be a four-part doc, with a yet-to-be written conclusion arriving in the fall. Directed by Katie Walsh, the series comes with drama built in, as Simone Biles returns to the Olympics after having withdrawn from the 2020 Games after her mind disconnected from her body, leaving her literally lost in space — there is a word for it among gymnasts, the twisties .
(Teammate Joscelyn Roberson likens it to getting on a roller coaster, closing your eyes and finding yourself on a different roller coaster.) But there’s more going on here than that obvious, if obviously riveting comeback story. (At 27, Biles will be the oldest American woman to compete in Olympic gymnastics in 72 years.
) “Rising” looks at what makes an extraordinarily gifted person an ordinary person, rather than the other way around; it’s a portrait of an articulate, self-possessed, forthright, good-humored young woma.