‘Gran Turismo’ Forgoes Historical Accuracy To Exploit a Tragedy

As the Gran Turismo movie races towards its wide release on August 25, early reviews of the sports biopic are starting to trickle in. The film tells the true story of Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe), who went from playing the Gran Turismo video game to racing professionally. Mardenborough is the youngest winner of GT Academy, a competition that invited the best Gran Turismo players worldwide to compete for the opportunity to race with team Nissan and kickstart a professional racing career. Early reviews have praised the film for its action, intensity, and inspiring underdog tale. Others have also praised how the film pays tribute to the beloved game series.

However, in addition to criticism for being a bit clichéd, several reviewers have criticized one instance of historical inaccuracy in the film in particular. While Gran Turismo is based on a true story and is largely accurate in the main points of its tracking of Mardenborough’s career, it does take some creative liberties, including adding original characters like David Harbour’s Jack Salter into the mix. Unfortunately, one of the biggest diversions it takes from historical accuracy is one that’s both unnecessary and very insensitive.

Gran Turismo exploits a real-life tragedy

A review from Polygon’s Oli Welsh highlights the poor choice of Gran Turismo to veer from the truth when it comes to Mardenborough’s tragic crash at the Nürburgring circuit in Germany, which killed a spectator. In 2015, Mardenborough was participating in the VLN endurance race at Nürburgring when he lost control of the Nissan GT3 he was driving. The car went airborne and landed in an area of spectators. Tragically, one spectator was killed in the horrific crash, while two others and Mardenborough were hospitalized with injuries. It’s unclear what exactly caused the crash, but the Nürburgring track is notorious for its dangers and difficulty. The part where Mardenborough crashed was known as Flugplatz, which translates to airfield, denoting the frequency with which cars went airborne at this point.

It isn’t necessarily wrong that the film includes the crash itself. As tragic as it was, a careful and accurate handling of the crash could have illustrated the dangers of motorsports for both drivers and spectators and explored the guilt and distress that Mardenborough experienced afterward. However, where Gran Turismo goes wrong is that it opts to switch the timeline, having the Nürburgring crash take place before Mardenborough experiences one of his great career accomplishments—placing third at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race.

In doing so, the film makes it seem as if the crash was, as Welsh put it, “a defining, motivating setback on Mardenborough’s hero’s journey to his Le Mans podium.” In reality, the crash and his Le Mans victory were completely unrelated. Mardenborough had his podium finish at Le Mans in 2013, two years before the crash took place.

Not only was the change historically inaccurate, but very insensitive to the individual who lost their life and to their family. For the movie to try to make it seem as if the death had to happen so that Mardenborough could be motivated to achieve greatness is egregious. Unfortunately, Mardenborough’s own comments about the film’s framing of the accident haven’t helped dispel criticism. While speaking to Driving.co.uk, Mardenborough explained that the crash was a part of his life, and he felt a need to include that dark moment in his story. However, he went on to state that he wanted the depiction to demonstrate, “How can you rebound and achieve something — achieve greatness — off the back of that.”

Now, it’s not surprising that Mardenborough would want to cover the struggle of recovering from the trauma of such a situation and explore how he was able to get out of that dark space, but the film’s version of that demonstration frames the tragedy as a story of inspiration for his career in a way that doesn’t seem sensitive to the reality of the situation. The innocent bystander who lost their life wasn’t just some obstacle Mardenborough had to overcome to make his story more exciting for a film.

(featured image: Sony Pictures Releasing)