dvd of the week
Based on the famed 1976 Formula 1 competition between James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl), Rush traces the two very different men from their early days driving lesser Formula 3 cars to the pinnacle of car racing, the Formula One World Championship. Hunt was a gorgeous blond British bad boy who partied as hard as he drove, while Lauda was an analytic, methodical and slightly rat-faced Austrian. They both became race car drivers over the fervent opposition of their families, and they both were fierce competitors. Hunt married supermodel Suzy Miller (Olivia Wilde) who left him for Richard Burton in a massive worldwide scandal, while Lauda’s marriage to Marlene (Alexandra Maria Lara) was quiet and only vaguely romantic. In Peter Morgan’s screenplay, Hunt’s desire to win seems rooted in an untamed id and Lauda’s out of a need for perfection, but both of them are driven by the other, partly because of how distasteful they find each other’s motivations to be. Ron Howard’s direction makes the film worthwhile, though his filming of the races makes them so thrilling that the human drama seems dull in comparison.
