Electric race cars and human drama on display in And We Go Green

Enlarge / Nelson Piquet Jr is one of the drivers featured in a new documentary about Formula E. (credit: Steven Tee/LAT/Formula E)

You might think a film about the world of Formula E racing would focus on the electric car technology being battle-tested by the sport. But And We Go Green-a new documentary now streaming on Hulu-is a much more emotional story about the sport. It takes about two and a half minutes for someone to drop the first F-bomb. We're in Hong Kong, and the electric racing cars of Formula E are lined up and waiting for the signal that starts the race. The only problem: those lights aren't working, and series boss Alejandro Agag wants to know "who the fuck is responsible" for messing up. That should make it clear that this is an unvarnished look at the sport.

The film follows this upstart race series as it goes about its fourth season, and more particularly some of the intense, sometimes long-standing rivalries within it. And I bring up the profanity-which starts with Agag but continues aplenty from everyone else-because so often that kind of thing is smoothed over by anodyne corporate messaging. But Formula E has always been a little more freewheeling than a series like Formula 1.

Unvarnished doesn't mean unpolished, though. And We Go Green is as much of a visual feast as any recent motorsports documentary, and if you think you detect the influence of legendary Director John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate, Ronin), good guess.

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