The very first scene of Senna leads one to believe that the Netflix series will do a spectacular job of transporting viewers back to the ’80s and ’90s. With incredible attention to detail, the moment offers an accurate depiction of what the streets of Brazil looked like when the whole country was rooting for Ayrton Senna (Gabriel Leone) to win another race. But then the series goes on to make such a series of mistakes that one wonders why this story needed to be re-told.

It’s possible to count on one hand the names of Formula One racers who managed to burst the bubble and become international superstars due to their talent on the racing tracks. Ten times out of ten, Senna’s name is bound to be mentioned, and in Brazilian culture, Senna managed to reach a god-like status that drove the whole country to the edge of their seats week after week when he was at work. But viewers won’t understand the phenomenon through Netflix’s lackluster limited series.

What Is ‘Senna’ About?

Senna chronicles the life of racer Ayrton Senna, who showed a passion for speed from an early age and worked his way to the top of the Formula One ranks. A standout on the track, the racer reached peak popularity due to his talent, charisma, and a media obsession with his love life. Senna’s premature death at a race in Italy in 1994 plunged the entire country into mourning due to the way the tragedy took place and the fact that the icon still had his whole life ahead of him.

In order to understand why Senna became as big as he did, it’s essential to understand the context of Brazil at the time. While he started to rise in the racing world, the South American country was going through one of its worst periods — a military dictatorship that lasted 21 years and officially ended in 1985. Fresh out of a terrible political regime and with misery and poverty a part of everyday life, most of the country was in dire need of hope and a figure who represented that life could get better. Senna ended up becoming that figure, and the races felt cathartic because they united the whole country rooting for something in common.

But Senna rushes past that. In order to avoid a sensitive subject in an otherwise feel-good story, the series makes the political turmoil and Brazil context of the ’80s and ’90s almost literally a footnote, which removes a vital layer of the story and makes the limited series sterile and formulaic. Even if viewers don’t know Senna, they can sense every beat of the series’ story because it follows a very basic structure that lacks imagination. This extends to pretty much every aspect of the show except Senna himself. It’s easy to tell that Senna is in love with its protagonist — to the point of hardly showing any of his faults — but one crucial mistake of the series is that it doesn’t carry the same love for F1 races.

5:08 Related How Netflix’s ‘Senna’ Series Captures Brazil’s Brad Pitt on the Track ‘Ferrari’s Gabriel Leone talks working with Michael Mann and Adam Driver and compares the racing scenes to Netflix’s upcoming limited series.

Real-Life F1 Races Offer More Emotion Than ‘Senna’
Image via Netflix

Tune in to an F1 race on any given week, and there’s a high chance of being pulled in by the racers’ ability to maneuver such fragile cars at top speed; soon, you find yourself rooting for them without even knowing who they are. Senna is not interested in conveying the emotion of a race at all, and sometimes makes the ill-advised decision to do portions of a race in CGI, which completely removes viewers from the experience. Series directors Vicente Amorim and Júlia Rezende also don’t seem to understand that an excess of cuts doesn’t equal emotion. At times, we can barely understand what’s going on in the race due to extreme close-ups that don’t tell us much about what’s actually happening.

Senna also doesn’t feel the need to explore the protagonist’s passion for racing. It barely does the work of showing the character studying technique, and expects the audience to believe that he has been involved with racing since his childhood through one scene in which he plays with the wheel of a car. Later in the show, there’s also a short flashback of little Senna learning how to drive with his father, but that’s about it. In fact, Senna isn’t really interested in anything else that isn’t its lead’s rise and popularity. Any surrounding characters never make it past surface level: we have The Mother, The Supportive Father, The Journalist, and the list goes on, while viewers never get to see and experience their individual struggles and the true role they played in Senna’s life. The only character who manages to dodge this is Xuxa, but only because the series knows full well that Brazil’s biggest TV host at the time needed a standout role and that audiences would flock to see Pâmela Tomé, who bears a bizarrely accurate resemblance to the real-life superstar.

Gabriel Leone Delivers a Magnetic Performance in ‘Senna’

Despite all of its problems, Senna is never boring because it can count on the talent of its lead star, Gabriel Leone. The Ferrari actor never phones it in, playing Senna with a magnetic passion that makes viewers eager to keep watching him. Through Leone’s performance, Senna’s win is our win. However, there’s a lot more going on in his mind than the series explores through moments when Senna is being careful about what he says to the press, when he uses it to his advantage, or when he’s visibly worried about accidents that take place on the racetrack.

This leads to Senna’s biggest problem. From the start, the series tries to synthesize lower-class Brazil — and the bulk of Senna’s fans — through two characters who follow Senna’s career for over a decade. The problem is, those two characters remain nameless for most of the episodes, and it doesn’t help that they are both the only Black characters in the story. In the series, they have no backstory, no dreams, nothing resembling real characterization, and they end up serving as a plot device that veers dangerously close to the white savior trope.

Senna is at its best when it lets Gabriel Leone do his thing, but other than that, Netflix’s limited series is vastly unmemorable and offers no insights or takes about why Senna became an almost mythic creature in Brazil. For a show that dedicates six hours to chronicling the F1 racer’s life, it’s a lot less informative than the superior BAFTA-winning documentary of the same name from Amy director Asif Kapadia.

Senna is available to stream November 29 on Netflix in the U.S.

Netflix’s Senna draws you in through Gabriel Leone’s performance but offers little else to enjoy.ProsLeone’s performance is never boring.Pâmela Tomé’s resemblance to Xuxa Meneghel will leave you awestruck. ConsThe series fails to contextualize the rise of Ayrton Senna.Real-life F1 races are far more exciting.Characters are barely developed.Black characters are either neglected or non-existent.

Senna is a biographical drama series directed by Vicente Amorim, chronicling the life and career of Brazilian Formula 1 legend Ayrton Senna. The series offers an in-depth look at Senna’s rise in the racing world, his personal challenges, and the impact of his legacy on the sport.Release Date November 29, 2024 Cast Kaya Scodelario , Gabriel Leone , Matt Mella , Johannes Heinrichs , Joe Hurst , Steven Mackintosh , Felix Mayr , Patrick Kennedy , Rob Compton , Leon Ockenden , Charlie Hamblett , Tom McKay , Arron Long , Keisuke Hoashi , Richard Clothier , Tom Mannion , Christian Malheiros , Camila Márdila , Arnaud Viard , James Daniel Wilson , Alice Wegmann , James Marlowe , Robert Irons , Daniel Crossley , Raymond E. Lee , Hugo Bonemer , Iñigo Galiano Seasons 1 Creator(s) Vicente Amorim Writers Thais Falcão , Álvaro Mamute , James Daniel Wilson Network Netflix Directors Vicente Amorim , Julia Rezende Expand

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