A fading rider, a doctor and a secret: Hollywood’s new cycling thriller begins filming
The film follows an ageing professional chasing one last shot at the Tour de France, and the doctor who helps him get there.
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Filming has begun in France on Pumping Black, a psychological thriller set in the professional peloton, with Natalie Portman and Jonathan Bailey in the lead roles.
Portman won an Oscar for Black Swan and is known for the Star Wars prequels, while Bailey made his name in Bridgerton before starring in Wicked and Jurassic World Rebirth.
Bailey plays Taylor Mace, a 35-year-old rider who is ageing out of the sport, while Portman plays Andrea Lathe, a doctor who takes him under her wing.
According to the synopsis published by Variety, Lathe is “driven by her own thirst for victory and power”, and as the race to the Tour de France goes on, Mace has to take increasingly dark measures to protect his secret.
A rider racing against his own decline, a doctor and a secret to keep leaves little doubt about the territory the film is heading into, though the synopsis stops short of saying it outright.
Feltet has reported that production started in mid-October in and around the French Alps, and is expected to run until December. Footage filmed by passers-by in Nice shows a staged scene of riders picking themselves up after a crash.
Bailey at least knows his way around a bike. He is a keen cyclist and has taken part in triathlons for charity.
Cycling has had a mixed record on screen. Stephen Frears’ The Program, with Ben Foster as Lance Armstrong, dramatised cycling’s biggest doping scandal in 2015, while the documentary Icarus won an Oscar in 2018 for its account of Russian state doping. More recently, Netflix’s Unchained series has taken viewers inside the Tour peloton.
The film is directed by Mimi Cave. No release date has been announced.
