There is a Far Side cartoon called “Hopeful Parents” where Mom and Dad watch their kid play video games, and they daydream about Help Wanted ads for professional video game players. They ads read “Nintendo Expert Needed” and “Can You Save the Princess? We need skilled men and women.” While the cartoon is a joke, the new film Gran Turismo takes that idea seriously. It follows an avid gamer who specializes in car racing games – or “racing sims,” his preferred term for them – as he’s plucked from obscurity and competes in the world’s most glamorous races. The film is also apparently based on a true story, which gives millions of gamers the hope that maybe, one day, they will be recognized for their talents behind their gaming consoles. There is so much corporate synergy here that it’s a minor miracle the film is involving at all. Then again, director Neill Blomkamp makes the shrewd choice to abandon its gaming meta-commentary and make a reliable underdog sports film instead.
Like how Air begins with a sneaker executive with a good idea, Gran Turismo starts with an auto executive who sets the story into motion. A sleazy Orlando Bloom plays Danny, a marketing middleman at Nissan who believes that players of Gran Turismo – the PlayStation racing game – are an untapped market. By starting a program that gives the best racers an opportunity to try out for a real-life racing crew, he figures he could get gamers excited about cars again (Nissans in particular). This attracts the attention of Jann (Archie Madekwe, energetic but bland), a young man in Wales who dreams of professional racing. His father (Djimon Hounsou) was a professional footballer, so he understands Jann’s obsession to a degree, although for racing the barriers to entry are too costly. Of course, Jann wins entry into the racing boot camp, led by a grumpy trainer/mechanic named Jack (David Harbour), where he quickly realizes the physical demands of racing are more significant than a mere simulation.
The opening scenes are a kind of wet dream for all gamers with tunnel vision. Not only does Jann get rewarded for an activity that is widely seen as anti-social, there is an improbable scene where a cute young woman (Maeve Courtier-Lilley) shows genuine interest in his hobby (every hardcore gamer dreams of an attractive, approachable crush who does not feign interest in games). Blomkamp also suggests that Jann’s experience as a gamer is what gives him an advantage on the racetrack. There are many, many scenes where the camera pushes into close-up, and we see a visualization of the kind of instincts Jann developed from countless hours of play. To its credit, the script by Jason Hall and Zach Baylin does not gloss over the transition from simulation to “IRL” racing as much as it could have. Gran Turismo shows the physical toll of racing, whether it’s the required endurance or the sheer force of accelerating so quickly. Still, this is an advertisement as much as it is a feature film, so they don’t want to make training scenes too taxing, lest they deter future racers.
Once Jann officially signs with Nissan, the film embraces convention and is all the better for it. There are familiar achievements and setbacks, including a race that ends tragically, that all culminates with a Big Race that is a triumph for Jann, as well as gaming culture. Blomkamp is not an especially skilled director of racing or chases, insofar that his camera barely communicates Jann’s performance or the obstacles ahead, but he compensates with a loud soundtrack of revving engines and kinetic movements that look cool. Sometimes that is enough, and there is enough expository detail so we understand what happens without directly looking at it (Harbour has an important, mostly thankless job of shouting updates and commands into Jann’s ear).
All this would be implausible, except the real Jann actually became a professional racer, even placing on the podium at Le Mans, the community’s most challenging endurance test. No doubt the film plays fast and loose with the facts – the trajectory toward stardom is rarely so full of clichés – and yet the real Jann also serves as his own stunt driver on the film. Little details like that are another extension of slick advertising, and yet the inversion from gaming amateur to expert “playing himself” might be enough to charm the most hardened cynic.
Now that this film suggests gamers could become professional athletes, what is next for the game to IRL pipeline? Maybe Call of Duty players will be hired by private security firms to carry out slick covert assassination missions, or Animal Crossing players would be in charge of the agriculture programs. Either way, this film, Super Mario Bros., and The Last of Us TV series suggest that 2023 is a turning point for video games in our culture. Sure, gaming has been staggeringly lucrative for decades, and yet it has been perceived as a hobby more than anything else. These films and shows suggest gaming are untapped areas for studios to mine intellectual property, to the point that the video game film may replace the superhero film in terms of ubiquity. If Gran Turismo ends up one of the better entries, then video games films will not get high marks for originality, but when clichés are reliable for a reason, then gaming and film studios might as well floor it.
Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures
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