peterrichboy
Having watched several documentaries over the years on legends of motor sport. Graham Hill Jackie Stewart Jim Clarke and now Sir Frank Williams. They all strike me as extremely driven determined and selfish individuals who put there need to increase the speed of their cars above all else and in Frank Williams most of all his family. They always came second to his F1 team. Despite having a remarkable wife who stuck by him despite numerous affairs and a near fatal accident that left him severely paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. In this insightful documentary we learn much about this remarkable man who took a struggling team on the point of bankruptcy to a multi million pound business winning several world titles along the way. We also learn much about his daughter Claire who herself has had difficult family decisions to make in her quest to become the most powerful woman in the male dominated world of Formula one. 9/10
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.
dim_zax
Frank Williams' life will probably be made into a movie someday. The struggles, the drama, the love of racing and the sheer drive for success, do make great ingredients for a movie. But this one is a -straight to the point- documentary. And a great one in my opinion.Most people don't have the time, or simply don't care, for anything else than the image and the results. The statistics, the pure numbers and the balance. This film delves deep into Williams Racing, which frankly is the same as the Williams family and the few close friends of theirs.It is clear that the documentary is not intended for the uninitiated in the racing culture and especially Formula 1. You will have to known faces and situations to get the full from the information and images you are seeing. And that may make it difficult for some to follow the swing from present to past to present again. But in return you get to see the people like they are, without evasions, and feel the story unfold before your eyes, like it is being written now.In conclusion i think this film is less biased than the Senna documentary, better structured than the McLaren one, which seemed a little bit shallow in places, and would definitely recommend it to petrol-heads and F1 enthusiasts.
AD
