‘Hill’ review: Intimate portrait of F1 driver Damon Hill

Dir: Alex Holmes. UK. 2025. 90 minutes

Everybody has a previous, however former racing driver Damon Hill’s is likely to be thought of heavier than most. The son of two-time world championship System One driver Graham, Damon’s life was rocked when he was 15 by the demise of his father – not on the racetrack, however in a aircraft crash. This polished, pacy and sometimes melancholy documentary sees Damon think about his profession partially by way of the prism of his father’s demise because it catalogues his progress by way of the game to his personal 1996 world championship win.

 A give attention to the non-public, in addition to the race monitor

Alex Holmes has a knack for choosing intriguing topics, having beforehand thought of the inspiring comeback of US bike owner Greg LeMond in The Final Rider and Tracy Edwards’ first all-female crew round-the-world yacht race in Maiden. Together with reflections from Damon himself, Hill additionally options appreciable contribution from the driving force’s spouse Georgie. Her ideas spherical out the emotional component of the documentary, whereas additionally quietly celebrating her significance to his success. This give attention to the non-public in addition to the race monitor ought to assist the movie attain past Damon’s apparent petrolhead fanbase when Hill hits tv screens as a Sky Unique within the UK and Eire later this 12 months, following its world premiere at Glasgow Movie Competition.

Graham’s success on the racing circuit means that there’s a wealth of archive footage and interviews from which Holmes can draw. That is easily edited along with household dwelling movies by Cinzia Baldessari, so {that a} collage of the non-public and the personal emerges. Damon acknowledges the privileged upbringing he had, despite the fact that motorsport took his father away from dwelling so much. The household’s aid when Graham retired was brief lived, because the aircraft accident occurred not lengthy afterwards. Worse nonetheless, Damon discovered about it from a newsflash on the tv – a second he recounts in uncooked element. The monetary burden Graham’s demise dropped at the household is among the issues that kick-started Damon’s profession within the sport.

“He was one of many saddest folks I’ve ever met,” Georgie says as she recollects how she encountered and shortly fell for her husband. This unhappiness bubbles beneath lots of Damon’s recollections, significantly throughout his early years within the sport when it appears he felt compelled to observe in his father’s footsteps out of duty, slightly than love of racing. 

As Holmes begins to chart Damon’s rise from take a look at driver for Williams in 1992, the previous stays intertwined with the current. Generally it’s a connection between father and son evoked by the enhancing collectively of footage from the 2 completely different eras  – a alternative that works nicely, though one overlay of Graham’s face on to his son’s feels pushed too far. 

Simply as usually, it’s one thing extra concrete. The second, for instance, by which Damon  struggled to succeed in the monitor for his try-out for the testing job solely to grasp it was the anniversary of his father’s demise. The demise of fellow Williams driver Ayrton Senna on the Imola Circuit in 1994 can be a crucial occasion, as Damon recollects how his father will need to have felt when his Scottish teammate Jim Clark was killed at Hockenheimring, West Germany, in 1968.

These on the lookout for the push of the race will discover it right here within the on-board footage from contained in the automobile as Hill talks about how he vied for the championship and, significantly, his rivalry with German driver Michael Schumacher. The off-track archive footage is ceaselessly proven in sluggish movement, which helps to emphasize the rate of the races Holmes consists of. This slowing down of key exchanges additionally makes us extra conscious of the look on Damon’s face, his pensiveness in early interviews or the merest flash of anger when Schumacher bats the height of his cap after dropping to Hill. 

This can be a little bit of a race across the F1 winner’s profession on the whole, however Damon’s willingness to share his emotions makes it a shifting and compelling watch.