Clearly, whatever is in the box is of Holy importance, as he actuallykneels downto open it.
Has he ordered a saintly relic, something to aid his evening prayers?
A splinter of the True Cross, perhaps?
He opens the lid, and we see the object of his worship: a steering wheel.
This is one of many early indications that the film isn’t firing right.
Well, technically it’s not a movie, it’s a movie simulator.
The movie springs from a true story.
If only the movie shared that devotion.
Instead we get a string of bizarre flourishes, meant to elicit nods from a knowing audience.
When he artfully loses the tail, a congratulatory badge blazes up onscreen: “COP AVOIDANCE.”
Strange to say, a couple of cliches come screeching to the rescue.
One is: The Father Who Lacks Faith in His Son’s Passion.
Played by Djimon Hounsou, Steven Mardenborough is believable - nicked and scored by sadness.
(His obsession was football, but it never came to anything.)
He brings his son to work, at a train yard, to scare him from drifting off track.
The other is: The Regret-Wracked Mentor Who Hopes for Redemption.
Salter stands over him and says, through a megaphone, “You puked on my lawn.”
In Gran Turismo, his skepticism of the GT Academy is a welcome tonic.
In the end, though, the task proves too much for him.
Here, amid laughably lower stakes, you’ve got the option to’t help but cringe.
Still, Jann’s journey to first place isn’t wholly without merit.
Praise to the cinematographer, Jacques Jouffret, for supplying some lovely closeups of cloth and buckle and piston.
It’s the same attentive witness that the Gran Turismo games bear to the trappings of their subject.
