Review: Become Who You Are

Become Who You Are is a brand new sports documentary, that had its premiere this evening.

The movie is about Jules Gounon, Memo Rojas, Scott Dixon and Bruno Senna, and their way to the 24 Hours of Le Mans

The majority of the car scenes in the movie is recorded during the 24 hours race in 2019, but does contain historic clips too, from the drivers own archives.

The movie is directed and produced by Frenchman Virginie Dulauroy, who is a new name in the documentary world, but is a well-known face with her still- and video cameras at the racetracks for many years. She has used many of her contacts to get his movie done, which is a real family project, with her son doing the sound editing.

Gounon is still a quite unknown quantity in the broad motorsports world, but he has achieved many good results in GT3 races all over the world. His dad, Jean-Marc Gounon, was also a racing driver in both Formula 1 and sportscars. So it’s only natural, that Jules gets the least amount of time in the movie. But he is certainly a name to watch in the coming years.

The Memo Rojas part of the movie really goes really deep, with visits to his native Mexico, including a visit to national tv, but also Carlos Slim, who has supported Rojas throughout his career in both USA and now Europe. His dad was also a racing driver, which is touched on briefly.

Scott Dixon – well, who doesn’t know him already? We are on his way from the very start back home in New Zealand, and goes really deep into the family man Dixon, with wife Emma Davies Dixon, and their two kids, which has now become three since the recording. They do touch the dangerous part of the sport, where Dixon was involved in a huge accident during the Indianapolis 500 in 2017, which he, fortunately, escaped with just a minor injury to his ankle. There is a lot of footage with his boss, Chip Ganassi, which is a huge plus for the movie, because insiders in the sport know very well, that Mr. Ganassi at times, isn’t too fond of the media.

Last but not least, there is Bruno Senna. When the Senna name is involved, uncle Ayrton will, of course, pop up. Unfortunately, that takes up quite a lot of the documentary, in the segments where Bruno is the subject. They delve into his youth, how he grew up with Ayrton, how he learned karting by Ayrton, and so on. The fatal accident in 1994 is also amongst the subjects, but they skip all the single-seater career of Bruno, and all of a sudden he is racing an LMP1 car for Rebellion Racing. They do, however, mention his sportscar results during the end of the documentary, including his LMP2 title in 2017, and the victories in every single FIA WEC category until now. Some of this might be down to rights surrounding video footage from the single-seater sport, which can be very expensive to obtain. But to our taste, there is a bit too much Ayrton, and too little Bruno over this segment.

Become Who You Are poster

Patrick Byrne has been chosen as the “expert” during the documentary – i.e. the one bringing a bit of facts about the drivers, and connects a few subjects that they bring up. You have to be a real motorsport insider to actually know who Byrne is – well he actually races LMP cars himself – but a lot of the viewers will be left with a – who is this guy actually. But it’s a different and good choice, instead of calling up John Hindhaugh, who is part of at least 90% of all over sportscar movies in that capacity. We do however still get a bit of “Hindy” on the Radio Le Mans commentary feed during the race, just as Martin Haven from the FIA WEC tv commentary is on most of the tv footage, from the host broadcaster.

The movie is just shy of 90 minutes long, with a good mix of the four drivers, and their stories.

This ain’t no new Truth In 24 – but will that documentary ever be equalled or surpassed? Probably not! If you know about the documentaries regarding JOTA and Rollcentre Racing, we are on that kind of level qualitywise and subjectwise. The movie is well produced and includes some very good shots, and you can’t really see that it’s the debut movie for Virginie Dulauroy.

We will give the movie a 4 out of 6 stars.

For those who catch this article right away, you will be able to see catch the second screening on the online cinema Bingewave.com, which will broadcast on 22 October 01.00 CET. The price for this screening is 10 USD – which is pretty much the same as a regular movie at the movie theatre.

The movie will be released on Amazon Prime in Great Britain and the USA tomorrow. The broadcast information for the rest of Europe will be released in the very near future.

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