I have opinions on Rush; of course I do. But in many ways they’re the least important.

My stupid opinions

So let’s get them out of the way. It’s good! – the performances especially. Daniel Brühl has been singled out for particular praise for his portrayal of Niki Lauda, but despite some serious reservations, for my money Chris Hemsworth’s James Hunt is just as impressive. I also rather enjoyed Christian McKay as Lord Hesketh – and it looked like he enjoyed chewing on that role too.

Although the film focuses on the 1976 season, I think the it covers the period prior to that better. The last third or so of the film feels slightly rushed (no pun intended, but I’ll take it), going from race to race with little time given to anything else.

More is made of the teams when Hunt is at Hesketh and Lauda at BRM. On the one hand, that’s understandable, given that those teams were rather more ‘colourful’. But on the other, there was real enmity between people at McLaren and Ferrari, and for me that doesn’t quite come across enough.

The race footage is well done – the sheer noise is particularly effective – but it’s the human story that resonates. The film maybe loses sight of that for a period, while it goes about telling the – not quite incidental, but less engaging – numerical story of the season.

There has been criticism of the ‘Basil Exposition’ commentary, but I found it only realistically patronising. While it does get repetitive race after race, it’s a reasonable enough way of pushing on.

Personally, I got more out of the documentary Hunt vs Lauda: F1′s Greatest Racing Rivals, and to a lesser extent When Playboys Ruled the World. (At the time of writing, the former is available on the BBC iPlayer for a couple of days yet – and neither is hard to find on YouTube and the like.)

There’s some stunning archive footage in those programmes; it’s almost a shame not to see that paired up with a film-level budget and taken full advantage of, especially when Senna did something so special with it.

What the money says

But that’s me, and as far as this film is concerned, I’m not the average punter.

Senna ultimately took £3.2 million at the UK box office. Rush entered the UK box office chart at number 2, took the number 1 spot in its second week, and has taken £4.7 million to date.

In short: it’s done well. It’ll be interesting to see how it does in the US, where it’s just gone on general release.

What a better person thinks

I was quite taken aback by how much my girlfriend enjoyed it. Her first comment was that it was the first time in a long while that she’d forgotten she was in the cinema. Not because she fell asleep, but because she was engaged: knowing little more than Lauda doesn’t die, the remarkable story had maximum impact.

The story has a wide appeal, and Ron Howard has made it attractive to a wide audience, in a format that’s immensely marketable – in a way that a documentary wouldn’t have been. People who saw Senna generally enjoyed it, but it was a harder sell. Documentaries just are.

The good news for me is it’s had a similar effect as Senna: my girlfriend wants to try to take an interest in Formula 1 again. It won’t last, but for some it will – which is good news for the sport.