Schumacher

This is a maddening biographical documentary about one of Formula 1 racing's greatest drivers ever. Schumacher is long on the details that true fans would know and ridiculously short on details that a wider, more universal audience would want to know, like how Formula 1 differs from other forms of racing, and the circumstances of the skiing accident Schumacher suffered in 2013 that seems to have paralyzed him and removed him from public view after a long and highly public career. Some reports now say he hit his head on a rock sustaining an injury so serious he was put into a medically-induced coma for six months. It's a mystery why the filmmakers, whose work seems otherwise sound (although overlong), would omit vital information anyone can find on Google in ten seconds.

Instead, we are treated to more than three minutes of baffling snowy mountain aerial shots, and not a word about the accident. Skiing isn't even mentioned. The pattern of omitting information begins earlier in the film, when Schumacher crashes and is helicoptered to a hospital. We are left to think the worst, then suddenly he's walking around in his race jumpsuit as if nothing happened, with no sense offered of how much time has passed since the crash. Half way through this long film, even those ignorant of the racing world will get the sense that the subject is coming to some terrible end, but when that end comes, it's as if someone imposed an information blackout. If the filmmakers were trying to spare family or friends the pain of reliving the unmentioned tragedy, they should've said so.