As everybody who knows me knows, I’m a huge fan of sports movies. Though not a sports movie, Senna is a sports mini-series about one of the greatest race car drivers of all time, Ayrton Senna. The series has six episodes of non-stop racing action from junior-level Formula 4 racing to the top level, Formula 1. The series documents the rise and eventual demise of one of the best of his era. He defied the odds and overcame many obstacles from ownership to administrators of the various organizations he was a part of. Whether it be competitive teammates or various countries he raced in who didn’t want to see him on the podium. He found ways to create drama and news for the sport he was famous for. The series is as good as I imagined considering I didn’t know what to expect. Any fan of this sport or this man and his career will undoubtedly be amazed by how good this show is.

Ayrton Senna (Gabriel Leone) is a young man who had racing in his veins from when he could drive a midget car. His father instilled in him the will to succeed at a young age in his native Brazil. From the time he was a little kid, he had a killer instinct on the track whether it be an oval, dirt track, or road course he conquered it with the greatest of ease. He moved from one division of Formula Racing to the next, winning races time after time. He also rubbed people the wrong way along the way. Eventually, he arrived at Formula One where he pushed buttons and the gas pedal as hard as he could. He achieved his goal of winning championships, but at what cost? He knew there were flaws in the cars and the tracks he raced on, but that undeniable drive to compete under any circumstances cost him dearly.

This show is spoken mainly in Portuguese, of course, because of its Brazilian origins, but there are some English-speaking characters. There is a little that gets lost in translation with dubbed shows, but the mix of English and Portuguese worked okay for me most of the time. Considering this show is about foreign race car drivers, it makes sense that the main language spoken would not be English. Senna interacts with Italian, French, British, and many others from other foreign countries. This series is genuinely a love letter to Formula One and Ayrton Senna, but it also represents countries from around the world. The directors, Vicente Amorim and Júlia Rezende make that clear to the viewers who watch this show.

Besides Leone as the titular character of Senna, the series has a very good and large supporting cast. Matt Maila plays teammate and eventual rival of Senna’s, Frenchman Alain Prost. He sees the writing on the wall when Senna becomes his teammate and starts to take the spotlight away from him at McLaren, the team for which both drivers won championships. Kaya Scodelario (Crawl) plays a reporter who gets close to Senna and is on his side regarding articles she writes in the papers. Other drivers aren’t fans of this friendly relationship the two have.  A couple of women play love interests for Senna. Pâmela Tomé & Julia Fati play Xuxa Meneghel and Adriane Galisteu, respectively. Both women love this man and want to see him succeed in racing, but not at the cost of their relationships. His relationships play an equal part in the series as the racing does. They are like a dichotomy to each other. These are just a few of the cast members in this show.  There are many more that play a vital part in this series. 

With this series being a period piece there are a lot of things that have to be done to make the show look authentic. Those are the clothes, hairstyles, and locations to name a few. This series captures all the necessary behind-the-scenes things like production design, costumes makeup, and hairstyling to make this show look very realistic to the time it took place in. The 80s and 90s came back to me considering those are the decades I grew up in. I love seeing shows set in these decades because it brings me back to my childhood. Sports were a huge part of my upbringing. Racing not necessarily, but it was cool to see this period fully realized on screen by the filmmakers. I can enjoy a show or film if it looks like the era it’s supposed to look like. These technical categories help in that, These departments deserve a round of applause bringing this world or racing at that time vividly to life.

As I always say when I’m reviewing a sports film, in this case series, the filmmakers have to get that sport correct for me to completely get engrossed in the show or film. In the case of Senna, the sport is Formula One racing. The directors capture the racing at this time in history pretty incredibly well. The scenes of various races seemed taken straight from the actual races they were supposed to be from. I couldn’t believe how unbelievably real these race scenes were. Many races were taking place in rain and so forth and they looked like they were actual races that happened in the past. I don’t know if these were archived races spliced into the series or not, they look incredibly real and as authentic as I could imagine. I know fans of this driver and sport will be the ultimate judge, but for me, they were incredibly realized in this fantastic show. I was genuinely on the edge of my seat during some of these races that took place in the series.

Besides the racing, there are details about the car and how the cameras captured the ins and outs of the various ways the viewers watching this show saw the drivers and their cars. The cameras caught all the shifting and pedal work of the drivers. Their faces were obscured by the helmets they were wearing so the audience didn’t get a lot of emotion from the drivers while they were on the Racetrack. One specific race in Monte Carlo showed how difficult the driving conditions were in pouring rain, but how Senna learned at a young age to drive in the rain. He made it look easy which put him in a category all his own. These are the little details the series goes into to make it as authentic as it possibly could be.

Senna is one of the better sports-related shows or films I’ve seen in recent years. Even though it was in a foreign language I could still enjoy it because there was some English spoken by a number of the characters. I ignored the dubs once I was completely engrossed in the show. The cast was fine and Leone kept me looking forward to episode after episode rooting for him as his character. The technical aspects were very good. They brought me back in time if I was there. The key element of this show that makes it work so well is the racing scenes. They are amazing, to say the least. Similar to Rush which was also about a rivalry in Formula One racing this series is as authentic as it possibly could be. The filmmakers and Netflix should be proud of this show. It’s genuinely a love letter to this racing legend and the sport he conquered so well. I have a feeling many people from around the world will enjoy it as much as I did.

All Six Episodes Review’d Available On Netflix November 29th

4 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen