Rush: Bringing Formula 1 To Your Seat

Rating: 7/10 (31 October 2013)

Rush is such a pleasant surprise!
I have never much cared about Ron Howard's intent and style as film director, yet admire his ability to zero into what sells now - whenever now is - in Movieland. His populist touch once made me thoroughly dislike A Beautiful Mind (2001), a film that has everything in it for me to love and was deluged with awards. Cryptography, mental illness and Russell Crowe as John Nash seemed a perfect match, but a tendency to ease the audience's experience by spelling out the future drove me away. That tendency still exists. In less subtle territories such as Apollo 13 (1995), Ron Howard really does himself justice. And in Rush where sports history serves as guide, kudos to him for straying from philosophical considerations and going for pulsating material, hand-held camera first.
Formula 1, a compelling rivalry, 70's glamour and serious speed with Thor/Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl at the wheels cannot fail. In principle, that's what Rush is. However, in the hands of Peter Morgan who wrote The Queen and the adapted screenplay for The Last King of Scotland, something incredible happens: the perfect Saturday date night movie scripted as if the author personally knew James Hunt and Niki Lauda when they put everything on the line in 1976.
Rush is the closest most of us will ever come to driving a Formula 1 race-car. It excels at giving the audience a genuine sense of the speed such finely engineered machines generate and the relative lack of protection they offer. The polarity of James Hunt's gregarious rock 'n' roll persona played by a charismatic Chris Hemsworth with Brühl's technically brilliant but emotionally remote Niki Lauda, eventually feels more like a duality. Both these extreme athletes from before the X Games era may have had more in common than they probably ever acknowledged.
In 2013, they are revisited by two actors who for disappearing into their respective roles could find themselves sharing centre stage with Ron Howard and Peter Morgan in March 2014. I would not be surprised for Julian Day's costume design to receive an Academy Award nomination too. Frida Giannini's period-evoking looks for Chris Hemsworth and Olivia Wilde (Suzy Miller) are so in tune to the glamour of the times they represent, they are desirable now. Rush is a beautiful movie to watch and Gucci can expect a stampede for several bespoke items. I wish product placement was always this subtle!
Like the absorbing Senna (2010) by Asif Kapadia, Rush does not require in-depth Formula 1 knowledge. One is a meticulously crafted audiovisual memoir in documentary form and the other is a cool action flick for a cosy night spent in good company. The journey starts with Rush.