F1: The Movie (2025, PG-13)

As I said in my response to this year’s Oscar nominations, F1 struck me as the “dad movie” Best Picture nominee, and now that I’ve seen it, I think that assessment was pretty accurate. From a filmmaking standpoint, it’s well made, and it has qualities that I enjoyed more than I expected, but on the whole, this one isn’t really for me.

Back in the 90s, Sonny Hayes was a promising Formula One driver, but a traumatic accident derailed his career. These days, he drives anywhere people will take him in between indulging his gambling addiction. Then his old racing buddy Ruben comes to him with a proposition: Ruben owns a Formula One team now, and while his number-one driver is solid, he needs a strong number-two to bring the team to the next level.

This is the sort of nominee that’s up for Best Picture, a few technical awards (editing, sound, visual effects,) and nothing else, which always makes the “Best Picture” part feel like a bit of a headscratcher. The thing is, F1 is put together quite well. It looks good, there’s a talented cast, and I’d say it’s mostly effective in dramatizing the races in a cinematic way. But while the story has its moments, that’s the main area where the film falls flat. In particular, it’s the lead character who isn’t working for me, which isn’t an ideal spot to be in.

Yeah, I’m not all that interested in Sonny. He’s a “maverick” type—he gains advantages on the track for the team by pulling cheap tricks, and for a good chunk of the film, this includes disregarding everything the mission control people are telling him to do and not telling anyone on the team what he’s up to. He brushes off crashing two cars as incidental, and he seems to delight in infuriating everyone on the team Just ‘Cause. It’s the epitome of “we let him get away with being an asshole because he gets results.” While Sonny eventually becomes a bit more of a team player, it’s only after most of the people on the team come around to his way of thinking and follow his lead.

The person who gets the worst of this blowback is Joshua Pearce, the team’s number-one driver. Joshua is young and talented but has been struggling to really stand out from the pack. Getting paired with a showboating wildcard, in his estimation, makes the team look like a joke and means he gets lost in the background behind Sonny’s antics. His distrust and resentment is understandable, but by and large, the narrative frames this as a Joshua problem, that he’s the one who has to get with the program.

Not much to say about Brad Pitt as Sonny. While he delivers what the role is supposed to be, it kind of feels like the sort of thing he could sleepwalk through. I’m not familiar with Damson Idris, but I enjoy his performance as Joshua, although the role is a bit thankless. Javier Bardem is effective as Ruben, and I like Kerry Condon as Kate, the engineer who designs and makes modifications to the car. Some other familiar faces here as well, including Tobias Menzies (I know he had a recurring role on Game of Thrones, but I remember him best as William Elliot in the Sally Hawkins Persuasion,) Kim Bodnia (Konstantin from Killing Eve,) and Will Merrick (Alo from Skins.) I was most excited to see a few of the actors in Joshua’s side of the story. Sarah Niles (Dr. Sharon from Ted Lasso) plays his mom, while Samson Kayo (Oluwande!!!) plays his manager. Are either of these roles very demanding? No, but it’s still nice to see them.

Warnings

Violent car crashes, language, drinking/smoking, sexual content, and thematic elements.

Other Doctor Lives: Young Woman and the Sea (2024, PG)

I like Daisy Ridley anyway, so when I realized she’d been in a movie with Christopher Eccleston, I was interested in seeing it sooner rather than later. Then Ridley was a guest on the podcast Films to Be Buried With, where Brett Goldstein absolutely raved about the film. So I thought, “All right, looks like we’re doing this!”

Trudy Ederle isn’t one to let things stop her. Not a childhood measles infection, not the limited imagination her immigrant community holds for her future, and certainly not the sexist attitudes that surround her. She pushes herself to become a championship swimmer, excelling in competitions and even going to the Olympics. But Trudy has an even bigger prize in mind, and in 1926, she sets out to become the first woman to swim the English Channel.

The beats we hit here are familiar for any First Woman to Do X movie: a determined and independent heroine, lots of paternalistic naysayers, setbacks and pushing through self-doubt, leading to ultimate triumph. This one is a bit Disneyfied, and I’d bet it adapts its history pretty loosely. But it’s ultimately an enjoyable, uplifting film that does what it sets out to do.

The childhood flashbacks at the start of the movie give us a pretty clear picture of Trudy’s mettle. Because she survived measles as a kid, her parents are concerned about her health and don’t want to let her go swimming, so she incessantly plays the same song over and over on her guitar until they relent. Hee! As a teenager, she goes from being the slowest, most hopeless girl on her swim team to becoming a powerhouse, seemingly through sheer stubbornness and just refusing to quit.

She needs that kind of grit, because everywhere she turns, people are trying to hold her back. Trudy’s father, a German butcher, can’t picture a life beyond their Manhattan neighborhood, and he expects Trudy to fall in line and do the same. As she trains for the English Channel, the male athletes attempting the same brutal swim are rooting for her to fail. Even people on Trudy’s own team are invested in the notion that a woman is simply not capable of this feat. Her sister Meg probably puts it best when she says, “People…they don’t want us to be heroes. They don’t want us to be anything.” All this doubt and derision is another current trying to pull Trudy under.

Daisy Ridley does a nice job as Trudy—she’s fierce and determined, but she also likes to have fun. She enjoys making her doubters eat crow, even as it sometimes demoralizes her. I couldn’t figure out where I recognized her dad from, but he’s played by Kim Bodnia, Konstantin on Killing Eve. Sian Clifford (Claire from Fleabag!) plays Trudy’s swim coach Eppy, while Stephen Graham (who I saw most recently as Mr. Wormwood on Matilda) plays Bill Burgess, the second man to successfully swim the Channel. I’m not familiar with Tilda Cobham-Hervey, who plays Trudy’s Meg, but she’s excellent. Ridley and Cobham-Hervey have a wonderful dynamic together.

Christopher Eccleston plays Jabez Wolffe. He’s the women’s swim coach for the Olympics and is later tapped as Trudy’s trainer for swimming the Channel, over her protests. She’d prefer to stick with Eppy, which causes Wolffe to exclaim, “A woman, training a woman? Like a lion taming a lion!" That pretty much tells you everything you need to know about this guy.

Wolffe is an odd duck, a women’s swim coach who’s actively skeptical of women’s swimming potential. During his time with the Olympic team, he acts more as a chaperone than a coach, not letting the female swimmers train on the journey overseas because he’d rather “protect their virtue” than help them maintain their skills. Wolffe is an odious, ignorant, and at times ridiculous antagonist. He lectures the swimmers on reading an etiquette guide ahead of the Olympics—“Specifically chapter 2: ‘What to Do if You’re Approached by a Frenchman’”—and tries to put Trudy on an absurd diet ahead of her attempt at swimming the Channel, wanting her to watch her figure instead of put on muscle.

He's in no way an admirable character, and he’s written fairly broadly, but Eccleston gets the job done. It’s pretty satisfying to hate Wolffe.

Accent Watch

Scottish. Based on the vowels, I’m guessing it might be a particular regional Scottish accent, but I’m not sure where.

Recommend?

In General – I think so. It’s a nice film, equal parts entertaining and moving.

Christopher Eccleston – Maybe. It’s not a huge role, and Wolffe certainly isn’t enjoyable, but Eccleston plays him well.

Warnings

Thematic elements, mild language, a little drinking, and brief nudity (bare butt only.)

Next Goal Wins (2023, PG-13)

This movie was a lot of fun. A silly, uplifting sports comedy about a team of loveable underdogs, some of its plot beats can be by-the-numbers, but the film is full of laughs and heart.

American Samoa has the lowest-ranked soccer team in the world. In their history, they’ve never won a game or scored a single goal, and they hold the record for the largest international loss. In 2011, Thomas Rongen, a disgraced Dutch-American coach, discovers that coaching American Samoa’s team is the only job left open to him. The ragtag team and the surly coach, wouldn’t you know it, find out they both have something to teach each other.

Yeah, it can be clichéd. Underdog sports movies tend to have a certain formula, and this one doesn’t stray too far from those entertaining but schmaltzy roots. We have training montages and slapstick scenes of amusingly terrible game play, we have team bonding activities, and we have a heartfelt locker room speech. It’s all here. The film doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but the team and the folks who surround them are a fun bunch of characters, easily handling the comedy that veers from sly to silly and then shifts into sentimental moments.

One place where the film does separate itself a little is from the particular “White Savior” genre of sports films. Thomas is ostensibly there to whip the team into shape, but the film is more about him learning to coach them in a way that works for them, rather than the group of brown people soaking up the white expert’s wisdom. The film is Thomas’s story, so his journey and growth is centered, but while the islanders have a lot to teach him, the film also sidesteps the “Magical Indigenous” tropes that commonly crop up. In fact, when it looks like Thomas is going to bail early in the movie, Tavita, the head of the Football Federation of American Samoa, gets his wife to pretend to be an old woman offering sage wisdom on the beach, on the grounds that white people eat that kind of stuff up. So it’s a bit wry and knowing, and ultimately, both Thomas and the team grow primarily through connecting with one another.

It's a solid film for Taika Waititi, and although I’d probably ranking it lower on his overall filmography, that’s mainly because he just has so many fantastic movies. The style of the film is loose and fun, and while it deals with some heavy things, its overarching message is one of optimism and community.

Michael Fassbender plays Thomas. He’s cantankerous, superior, and resentful, which puts him in a good position to be humbled and learn a little something over the course of the story. The star of the team is Jaiyah, a fa’afafine (third gender) player who clashes with Thomas and pushes back against his gruffness and disrespect. She definitely the most prominent of the players, but they all work well together as a comedy unit, if not a particularly competent soccer team! Oscar Kightley is a constant scene stealer as Tavita, and the film also features Our Flag Means Death alumni David Fane (Fang!), Rachel House (Mary Read,) Will Arnett (Calico Jack) and of course Rhys Darby (Stede!!!), along with a cameo from Waititi. Elisabeth Moss gets in on the action as well, playing Thomas’s ex.

Warnings

Language (including transphobic remarks and deadnaming, which the narrative very much frames as gross,) sexual references, drinking, and thematic elements.