CIFF 2026 Movie Review: Isabel, No Hands: The Wild Ride of the Schwinn Bicycle Company
My 2026 Chicago International Film Festival kicked off with the Brazilian wine drama Isabel and the documentary No Hands: The Wild Ride of the Schwinn Bicycle Company.
Gabe Klinger’s Isabel is a charming film set in São Paulo’s wine community. Marina Person stars as the titular Isabel, a world-class sommelier working at a Micheline Star restaurant. She is unhappy at the restaurant, as the owner, Tommaso (Marat Descartes), does not appreciate her talents as a sommelier and the wines that she wants to sell. Isabel wants to sell local wines with personality, but Tommaso wants safer, more traditional wines. One night during dinner service, Isabel meets Pat (John Ortiz), a wealthy businessman who is interested in local Portuguese wine. Isabel’s encounter with Pat inspires her to do something she has always dreamed of: open her own wine shop.
Isabel is the best movie about wine since Sideways. But it isn’t focused on Merlot or a Pinot Noir, and it isn’t set in Napa Valley or the Italian countryside. It is set in the streets of São Paulo and focuses on the Portuguese wine community and wine with a personality. Klinger utilizes 16mm film to shoot Isabel, giving the film extra graininess and grit, while also making the color and scenery pop, like that of an older, finely aged wine. The streets of São Paulo are a beautiful, colorful landscape, and Klinger makes clear how important Portuguese culture is to Isabel and her dream of opening her own wine shop.
Person is spectacular is Isabel. She carries the film on her shoulders, and her radiance shines brightly on the screen. She oozes charisma and showcases a range of emotions, being subdued without being boring, but also knowing when to go bigger without going overboard. We are always rooting for Isabel and her dreams, and feel the depths of her emotions when she stumbles. Person is sensational in a truly lovely performance.
Klinger shows the ups and downs, struggles and triumphs of following your dreams. But Isabel isn’t a fairy tale, and ends in an unexpected manner that is equally sad and beautiful. Isabel is a lovely movie deeply rooted in its culture.
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No Hands: The Wild Ride of the Schwinn Bicycle Company felt more like a profile I would see on the nightly news than a cinematic documentary. The title claims to be a “wild ride”, but there isn’t anything wild about it. In fact, the film is rather boring. The most exciting parts of the film were at the beginning, when they covered the history of bikes and how they were utilized at the turn of the century, especially for women. The story of Schwinn’s rise and fall isn’t anything surprising, and ultimately came down to a business losing jobs to China. Schwinn still makes today, just not in its Chicago factories, but overseas in Asia, as many companies do.
While flat and boring, the more egregious aspect of No Hands was the filmmaking. It is mostly talking-head interviews that sound like they are reading off a Wikipedia page. The film is also narrated by Lance Armstrong, who rode a Schwinn while he won his Tour de France races. But given Armstrong’s relationship to bike racing, his being the voice of the film, and not even adding much insight into Schwinn and how he used it while racing, felt more like a cash grab than insightful.
Director Daniel Clark also decided to use AI to bring old photos “to life”, and it is horrendous. This has nothing to do with my opinion of AI in movies in general, but this just looked ugly and fake, like something made by a bot on Twitter, and it is used many times during the beginning of the movie. It didn’t add anything to the movie or the old photos. Clark used AI to make a character smile or ride a bike. That’s it. It was very distracting, and like how most of these photos “brought back to life” look: ugly and stupid.
No Hands: The Wild Ride of the Schwinn Bicycle Company is a very skippable documentary. Seasoned bikers or fans of Schwinn might find something to enjoy, but even that might be a stretch.
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