013—F1 the movie
Not ready to ride off into the sunset, the cowboy (Brad Pitt) takes another lap
F1 the movie, directed by Joseph Kosinski and written by Ehren Kruger (both of Top Gun: Maverick), is in some ways as formulaic as it’s title. You know going in there will be shots of sleek cars, tense races, adrenaline-pumping crashes, some strife or trauma to overcome, and an inevitable champion. But this type of structure, responsible for many blockbuster’s over the years, works for a reason and F1 is no exception.
It’s a movie that understands and cares about presentation and appearance—everyone is hot, stylish, and oozing charm—and how those things can be used in service of myth and metaphor.
The movie opens with the Rolex 24 at Daytona, an endurance race that requires teams to race in shifts. Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) is the graveyard shift driver, responsible for closing gaps and getting the team into a good spot for the day driver to cinch the win. The opening does an excellent job of establishing a few things about the type of man Hayes is. From the van he lives in, which comes with a surfboard on the side, to the disappearing act he pulls after the race is over it’s clear that he’s equal parts drifter and cowboy replete with ruggedness, skill, and talent, but no real interest in fame.
That all gets upended when old friend and former racing rival Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) tracks Hayes down in a laundromat somewhere in the swamps of Florida. Cervantes is in trouble. As the owner of F1 team APXGP, he’s hemorrhaging millions due to the team’s inability to cinch any wins with their current talent Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). With nine more races in the season, Cervantes’ offers Hayes money, an F1 team driver spot, and a second chance at F1 glory after his first came to an end decades earlier due to a horrific crash.
The problem with APXGP is mainly the car, and although technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) is shown staring at many screens doing high-tech analyses, it doesn’t seem to be helping the team build something that can compete with Ferrari or Mercedes. There’s also Pearce’s racing talent or lack thereof. Idris is impeccable at making charisma, smarm, cockiness, and a sense of calculated striving with more concern for celebrity and fame than being a great driver look like second nature.
With board member Tobias Menzies (Peter Banning) showing up in the building and chatter of a sale it’s clear that this is a ‘do or die’ moment for APXGP, but the stoic, principled individualism of Hayes threatens to unravel the team even more.
As the drama plays out, Kosinski uses quick cuts and lingering camera shots to touch on themes and anxieties central to the character Sonny Hayes, to the man playing him, Brad Pitt, to the film industry, and to contemporary society. Like death a changing world is a certainty, but instead of bringing comfort those changes paradoxically trigger existential fears.
For the cowboy, it was the vanishing frontier due to modernization and privatization. For the old (Biden, Feinstein, Ginsberg), it’s the threat of the young. For the current democratic party, it’s democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani and his working-class, people-powered coalition. For white evangelicals and the American right-wing, it’s currently immigrants. For Hollywood, it’s capitalism, streaming, lack of in-person moviegoing, and AI.
“I interpret a midlife crisis as a fear of growing old and fear of dying, you know, going out and buying a Lamborghini.”—Brad Pitt for GQ
For Pitt, it’s the death of his own stardom and an unwillingness to cede the limelight. For Sonny Hayes, whose old school analogue style of training is presented in contrast to Pearce’s high-tech, every-stat collected and analyzed, it’s the life-or-death limitations of his own beaten body paired with the fear of not just being a ‘has been’, but a ‘never was’.
There’s a point in the movie where we learn why Hayes still races. He describes the flow state he’s sometimes able to slip into when in the car as the thing he’s always chasing. All the noise falls away and there is just the present moment and the road. It’s interesting, that he feels most alive when he’s freed from the material friction of life (emotion), but there are worse ways to make peace with death.
F1 is mostly a movie that asks what happens when the cowboy isn’t ready to hang up his hat, but is willing to go fast into every sunset he has left.
Special character shoutout: The Sunglasses
Forget about APXGP versus Ferrari. My favorite character(s) in this movie were all thanks to costume designer: Julian Day. Please look at some of these incredible sunglasses ST Dupont D002, Dior DM40090, vintage aviators, Police SPLF72, Oliver Peoples Dresner OV1320.
Movies this is in conversation with
Other movies watched this week
Ronin, Mississippi Masala, and I’m headed to see Familiar Touch this afternoon.