F1

Velocity as Virtue

In an era where the summer blockbuster has become synonymous with green screens and weightless digital armies, director Joseph Kosinski has emerged as the custodian of gravity. With *Top Gun: Maverick*, he proved that audiences crave the tangible terror of practical speed. Now, with *F1*, he effectively doubles down on that thesis, delivering a film that is less a sports drama and more a kinetic experiment in how much G-force a cinema seat can theoretically transmit.

The narrative chassis of *F1* is undeniably vintage, if not entirely second-hand. We have Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), the disgraced veteran coaxed out of a van-dwelling retirement; Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), the arrogant prodigy who needs a lesson in humility; and the fictional APXGP team, a scrappy underdog outfit fighting for survival. It is the same engine that powered *Days of Thunder* and *Ford v Ferrari*. Yet, to dismiss *F1* for its formulaic script is to misunderstand its purpose. Kosinski isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel; he is trying to make you feel the road beneath it.

The film’s brilliance lies entirely in its lens. Kosinski and cinematographer Claudio Miranda have strapped us into the cockpit, utilizing the same groundbreaking 6k camera technology from *Maverick*, but adapted for the claustrophobic violence of open-wheel racing. The result is a visual language that is suffocatingly real. We are not watching the cars from a safe, televised distance; we are vibrating inside them. The sound design is a physical assault—a deafening, mechanical scream that drowns out dialogue and thought alike, leaving only instinct. When Hayes navigates the curves of Silverstone or Spa, the camera shudders with an intensity that CGI simply cannot replicate. The blurring asphalt and the terrifying proximity of the barriers create a high-stakes anxiety that no amount of narrative cliché can dilute.

Anchoring this technical maelstrom is Brad Pitt, whose late-career era has settled into a comfortable, weathered cool. As Hayes, Pitt avoids the trap of over-acting the "tortured genius." Instead, he plays the character with a quiet, almost bored competence that masks a desperate need for redemption. There is a small, telling detail—a superstition involving a playing card tucked into his suit—that speaks to the gambler’s fallacy at the heart of the sport: the belief that skill can indefinitely outrun luck. His chemistry with Damson Idris is prickly and earned, but the film’s most surprisingly tender dynamic is between Hayes and Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon), the team’s technical director. Their relationship sidesteps the obligatory romance for a "grown-up rapport" that feels refreshingly pragmatic.

Ultimately, *F1* is a triumph of texture over text. The script may hit every expected beat—the mid-season crash, the locker room confrontation, the last-lap miracle—but the execution is so muscular, so undeniably present, that the clichés feel like necessary structural supports rather than lazy writing. Kosinski has crafted a film that doesn’t just show us a race; it demands we survive it. In a digital world, *F1* is a heavy, metallic reminder that there is no substitute for the real thing.