Gran Turismo Movie Tells a Fairy Tale That Was True

The caller ID on my phone screen said “United Arab Emirates,” home of the Yas Marina Circuit, home of the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this Nov. 26, and home, apparently, to a lot of race car drivers.

It was Jann Mardenborough, the young man whose incredible life story is the subject of the movie, Gran Turismo, in popular release now and also available on many streaming services. It’s the story of Mardenborough’s rise from Play Station gamer specializing in the racing game Gran Turismo to real-life race car driver. It’s a true story that, if you’d just heard about it, would have you saying, “They should make a movie out of that.”

Well, they did.

Sony Pictures worked for years to produce Gran Turismo the movie, perhaps in part because Sony owns Gran Turismo the game, but also in part because it’s a fairy tale story that gives equal parts hope and legitimacy to millions of online gamers everywhere.

Mardenborough wanted to be a race car driver since he was old enough to pedal a pedal car. Had his family been better off—like, say, billionaire Lawrence Stroll better off—he could have gone right into karting like any respectable five-year-old racing aspirant does nowadays. But alas, his family didn’t have Stroll family dollars, or pounds since he grew up in Cardiff, Wales. So he did the next-best thing: He started playing the online racing game Gran Turismo.

Gran Turismo is the product of the detail-crazed developer Kazunori Yamauchi, who has striven to make it as realistic as possible, as close to what a real driver feels in a real race. The public seems to agree, as the game is approaching 100 million sold.

Mardenborough played the game obsessively, becoming, as far as he knew, one of the best at it in the world. It fulfilled many of the elements of the racing life he wanted, but at a much more affordable price.

Then he saw an ad for a competition: “Win A Season in a Real Race Car.” It was a competition among gamers worldwide to get a full-ride sponsorship driving a Nissan GT-R in competition at real racetracks.

He won the competition and has been a professional driver since, first associated with Nissan, now in a number of series around the world, including racing in Japan and at Le Mans.

His story is told in the movie with a minimum of Hollywood cliches, though not completely without them: the disapproving father who wants him to play soccer just like he did; the worried mother who fears for his safety; the unrealistically cruel crew chief who says he “wants him to fail.” But you can see beyond that and enjoy a well-above-average story that just happens to be about racing. And happens to be true.

It was not anything Mardenborough ever thought would happen to him.