F1 - Joseph Kosinski
I like F1; I like the concept of cars going really fast around a track – the politics, the engineering, the tactics. But I didn’‘t like this movie. For a sport with so many interesting storylines, they chose one that couldn’’t be more bland: “the hardened veteran comes to show the cocky rookie how to fall in love with racing.”
The framing of Brad Pitt’‘s character as a hero because he does it for the love of racing, as opposed to Damson Idris’‘s character who is in it for the money, is somewhat ironic considering the sheer amount of advertising and product placement in the film—almost copying Kimi Räikkönen’‘s Heineken 0.0 ad at one point, and only a few moments where an Apple device can’‘t be seen on screen. This, paired with the’‘evil board member’’ vs ‘’poor millionaire owner’’ storyline underpinning the need for Pitt to come back to racing, makes for a weirdly disingenuous experience, where the message the film is telling me to believe in is being subverted by their production choices.
The representation of women in his film is another thing that has rubbed me the wrong way. When we are introduced to Kerry Condon’‘s character as the only female technical director, they had an opportunity to discuss the underrepresentation of women in motorsports and all she had to do to get there. Instead, we have her throw her career away by sleeping with one of her drivers. We also have Jodie — played by Callie Cooke, whose only role in the film is to make a mistake in a pit stop and then be comforted by Brad Pitt. There was such potential to give these characters roles that show what it’‘s like being in the boys’’ club that is F1, but instead, they fell back on using them to force out Pitt’‘s softer, more caring side, something that really didn’’t have to be in the film.
The saving grace of this film was the cinematography and music. Coming off Top Gun: Maverick, Kosinski again shows how to blend practical and special effects to create an exciting experience. However, I do think some sequences were drawn out, with the middle of the film punctuated by a five-minute music video featuring a montage of the various races.
2/5