Hottoceame
The Age of Commercialism
InformationRap
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Taha Avalos
The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Ian
(Flash Review)As a large Formula 1 fan and much to my chagrin, I didn't know anything about Frank William's history; how he formed his team or why he was even in a wheelchair. This well-edited documentary shines a bright like on Frank and takes you through his early years as a very in shape man up to him falling asleep in pit lane in his wheelchair. You learn how obsessed he is with racing!!! How his family and primary daughter became the core of the team after Frank's accident up through today. And you learn in great detail about his accident and how close he was to not surviving. Overall, this gave a full spectrum of his life and career in an engrossing way. A must for F1 geeks.
The Movie Diorama
As an avid fan of the sport and typically enthralled by documentaries, this review might have some slight bias. I must profess that you do not have to be a petrol-head to enjoy this, it is incredibly accessible to everyone. Having said that...wow! This actually might just be the first time I teared up to a documentary. Chronicling the life of Sir Frank Williams, founder of the Williams construction team for Formula 1, journeying through both the sport and his family affairs. Initially, I underestimated what I was in store for. A typical sporting documentary this is not. Matthews carefully portrayed Williams' personal backstory and intertwined it with his addiction and aspiration to the motor world in what is a perfect equilibrium. The two sides bounce off of each other where any incidents or scenarios in either life affect the other, as if Williams' story is its own ecological structure. Mesmerisingly breathtaking and incredibly moving, honestly. One man's ambition has lead him to create one of the sport's best engineering teams, and this film illustrates just how much of an impact he has made. "The accident" that occurred is intricately embedded to showcase his unstoppable personality. It didn't deter him away, he came back more focussed than ever and I really admire the way this film captures that. It's never melodramatic, it's an honest frank (pardon the pun...) look into a broken family. It doesn't stop there, it dabbles into the lack of female empowerment within the sport and how his daughter is a leading figure, not just in the team, but the entirety of F1 racing. There is a touching moment towards the end where his daughter reads a book to him about her mother, and for a moment I was stunned. The ferocious amount of emotion that was conveyed overwhelmed me. The tangible heartache for this family is astronomical. I would've like to have seen more of the racing and it could've been cut shorter for a much tighter narrative. However, the pace speeds along to an emotionally complex finish line with grace.
szweda-18555
Am not sure what to make of this experience, there were times when I felt too close to emotional ripples to the point of voyeurism perhaps. Have followed the team since Damon Hill joined but have struggled to like the man after how Damon was treated in his championship year. Here is revealed more of the man you always suspected lies there running the ship like an obsessive who lets nothing stand in his way. Not even business disasters not to mention fatal accidents in his team's cars. Who could survive let alone prosper when they have been hit by so much so often as we see here. But he has not been the only one to pay the price of membership of the "piranha club"; his family deserve medals and more for their considerable tolerance and sacrifice to feed the machine. Whether this is a biopic of Sir Frank or the team that bears his name I was not entirely clear, maybe that was deliberate, you will have to make your own mind up. Personally if this is what it takes to touch the top in F1 then leave me and mine out of it. 32 holidays in the same place without your father... well, it says it all really. Call it driven or call it selfish you have to ask if the price of fame is worth it. One last note to the film-makers - I would warn would-be viewers to be alert to the tragedies of multiple accidents some of which were clearly fatal and are in my mind horrific adding nothing to the intent of the film. It is a thin line between sensationalist and essential in some minds. Do we really need to be shown these terrible accidents? I think not. Let us remember them full of life not as blazing corpses.
sam21462
It is rare that a film leaves me feeling as this one did. It was moving, touching, honest and a bit haunting. More than anything, however, I want to stress the honor that I felt in being allowed to share in such an unbelievably intimate portrait of a family that has climbed a mountain and found another behind it.It is a story off a man's consuming passion for a sport that would eventually lead him to the absolute pinnacle at the same moment that his life was tragically turned inside out by an accident caused by the very thing he loved, speed. More than that, however, it is a story of the grace of two women, his wife, Virginia and his daughter, Claire. While there are countless interviews with some of the greatest names in Formula 1, it is Virginia and Claire that truly steal the show and I was simply left in a bit of awe of them both.
