Being familiar with the event I heard about this movie a while ago, and how it skillfully and delicately captured the drama and mood as it unfolded, it took a while before I had an opportunity to actually watch it, alas with high anticipation.
Well, it did not match the expectations and I have a hard time understanding all the fuzz. It has a distinct graphical style for sure, but not to the extent that it is different from many others. It is slick, but that's really it and it did not, at least to me, convey any particular sense of drama per se.
What effectively kills this movie though is that it takes serious liberties with the actual event it portrays, which begs the question of what really is the point of the movie? As a movie it barely makes sense, and I can understand that the representation as shown is both moving and shocking for a viewer/film festival reviewer, whom either hasn't heard of the accident before, or isn't familiar with the details, but to me it was a serious flaw that so much was just made up for dramatic effect. Especially since the reality was even more dramatic, and beyond making it more sinister by having it play out in the dark, I can't see any viable reasons for straying like this. The events are for example well documented in numerous articles, not to mention Wikipedia.
Mild spoilers ahead I guess, and I'm not an expert but for example, John Fitch did not have an argument with Neubauer at the time of the accident, he was standing next to Levegh's wife and saw the whole event unfold. John Fitch neither had to persuade Neubauer, as he too quickly came to the conclusion that it would be a PR disaster regardless if they won or not.
In all the movie oozes of lost opportunities. It was undoubtedly a horrific tragedy, but more interesting would have been to see the reasoning behind keeping the race running. Another aspect is that, as this was obviously before cell phones, apparently few people on the other side of the track realized the extent of what had happened until hours later, which is something that is so much more remarkable given that it happened during daylight, and not as shown in the movie when it was dark and the crowds had started to recede.
