F1: The movie that could have been

F1: The movie that could have been

[contains spoilers]

F1, the movie has hit theatres this weekend and while a few things have worked a lot hasn't. This is an opinionated review by a Formula 1 fan.

The (few) good bits 

  • Cinematography - On board camera shots and action sequences throughout the movie are phenomenal.  It’s amazing how well the film has blended itself in with what were actual Formula 1 race weekends and the logistics of making that happen is quite impressive.  
APXGP on the grid with Formula 1
  • The actors learnt how to drive the race car, a surmountable task indeed, that they deserve high praise for, practising on Formula 3 and then eventually moving to the Formula 2 spec car used in the film.
  • Bernadette Pearce, Joshua Pearce’s mum (Played by Sarah Niles) is a calm character and her presence adds a voice of reason for Joshua as well as a support system. 
  • Ruben Cervantes’s Wardrobe (Played by Javier Bardem) 
  • There are some funny and witty dialogues spread through the film that do bring out genuine laughter.  
  • Every scene with Formula 1  drivers and crew (and very surprisingly, there are only few)

Now the rest-

As the movie progresses, it becomes simply impossible to look past the inconsistencies, absence of basic fundamentals of motorsports and the unrealistic portrayal of everyone and everything - drivers, teams, team personnel, work ethics, crashes and recovery.  It’s clear that the movie is not for the real Formula 1 audience, which raises the question, who is it for?

One might say - “It’s a fictional story, so how does it matter if it’s realistic” - F1, the movie, has attached itself to real Formula 1,  firstly naming it “F1”, even using the F1 logo, using real race events to shoot with real drivers who feature in the film and also having Lewis Hamilton as one of the producers, yet it has shockingly failed to include any real understanding of the sport it wished to portray. 

If the film was independent, no problems, make what suits your story but one has to wonder if the same old story of “one white guy saves all” would have sold well, if at all, had it not attached itself to Formula 1’s popularity and the enormous following that Formula 1 drivers have.  

And after all that, the real people of Formula 1 have been given very little screen time. For months, nay years, ever since the movie was announced, Formula 1 has marketed it relentlessly. Social media has been bombarded with content. Apple has gone to lengths (like releasing trailers with haptic audio), to create the perfect anticipation. And then at the premier, getting all the drivers to travel and watch the film together and  be repeatedly and exhaustingly asked about it, the movie fails to live up to its name.

Within its own plot, stereotypes shine. Good, that they showed a woman in leadership position as the technical director of a F1 team, but very quickly went back to cliches and narrowed her existence to sex. In the wake of new romance, Kate (played by Kerry Condon), throws away her entire engineering design to do what Sonny Hayes (played by Brad Pitt), the messiah, says. Sonny who hasn’t been around modern F1 for the last 30 years, takes all but three seconds to become an expert in everything. Not only Kate but the entire APXGP abandons their expertise, experience and understanding to follow the charismatic new guy.

It isn’t just that the movie shows a relationship that would be highly unethical, but within the story it is also unnecessary. What is most infuriating is the whole conversation where - man and woman meet, woman sets boundaries, charmed by the man immediately breaks set boundaries. And to anyone who needs this explained, when people set boundaries, they mean it. It isn’t flirtatious, or “she doesn’t mean that” or an invitation to cross it, or to aid her in crossing it, no matter what films may preach. It’s clear that Sonny Hayes is not an ethical character by any measure but makers of this film have devoid Kate of it as well. It’s representing a scenario where people cannot respect, empathise, understand or work with each other without sex.

Furthermore, another female character, the mechanic, Jodie (played by Callie Cooke) makes a mistake as quickly as she appears on the screen, by leaving a wheel gun in the path of Joshua’s car as it is released from the pit box. When Joshua Pierce (played by Damson Idris), the talented rookie driver and Sonny’s teammate, reasonably gets angry with her, Sonny quickly defends her, but why!? And would he have done that if it was a male mechanic in her place? What she did was a dangerous mistake, that deserved reprimand. But we don’t see the team principal getting involved, or anyone addressing the problem, once Sonny shuts it down. Jodie’s story again is unnecessary and goes nowhere and her being the only one to make a mistake, singles her out. It could have easily been one of the many other male mechanics in her place making the mistake, and her in their’s simply working in the pit.

The movie doesn’t spare men as well in it’s stereotypical storytelling and false portrayal- where men cannot talk or express themselves with words even in the most professional environments without the need to throw each other up the garage walls. Any conversation of recovery from the most terrible of crashes, healing and mental health is absent from the film. 

In this magical realm of Sonny’s F1, the concept of super license does not exist, qualifying is not required, rules need not be followed, and safety is a hoax, one can just show up to the track and get to drive. Go to any track in the world, and the first poster you’ll come across is that ‘Motorsport is dangerous’. Because it is. It can cost lives, and it has costed lives, yet the movie treats safety as an oblivious concept, even as it features one too many terrible crashes. Sonny notably asks Kate to put safety secondary and make a design for “combat”. It remains unclear how they are able to make the new designs within the regulations that they previously couldn’t due to safety concerns. 

Sonny crashes deliberately several times, runs the team, runs his teammate’s race,  seemingly to give the team an edge to get a point, acts that would warrant a ban in real Formula 1 but within the movie the team just accepts it.  Deliberate crashing should never be praised, nor accepted. Formula 1 still has the embarrassing shadow of Crashgate that it cannot shake away. It’s not a strategy rather a very dangerous shortcut.

Formula 1 is a team sport that employs thousands of people who have clear and divided responsibilities. For example, technical directors don’t do everything, let alone watch drivers tie their shoe laces or resolve teammate animosities. The movie fails to portray what it really takes to make a F1 team, gain a point, a win, a championship - the effort, the engineering and the relentless spirt of everyone involved. Formula 1 is bigger than one man’s ego Formula 1 isn’t AT ALL what it showed it to be, and if it ever becomes that, it will no longer remain the elite sport it is revered for.

F1, the movie, could have been a story about Sonny Hayes, letting go of his “messiah” ego, his “one- man” understanding of the sport and working with a team to achieve something remarkable- his own dream, and the teams’s.  It could have been a film about the underdog working hard, using every expertise in the world to find what they needed to survive in the sport. It could have been so many things and told so many stories with the support and audience it had even before it finished filming.