Just the name Ferrari immediately evokes observations about the car: fast, red and expensive. With a few red flags, the man behind this famous fine-tuned vehicle was known to be calculated, distant, and autocratic. “Ferrari” is based on the revealing yet stark story of Enzo Ferrari’s life in 1957, his company and the last tragic 992-mile Mille Miglia auto race.
It was the lot of acclaimed Michael Mann (director, screenwriter, author and producer) and Adam Driver in the title role to make an audience care not only about racing but the man who pitted his drivers against each other with unreasonable pressure, rising as an icon of male power.
Part of the problem with the subject, Enzo Ferrari, was that he was myopically focused about only one thing in life – racing. Not exactly shallow or loveless, he visited the grave of his son, Dino, who died from muscular dystrophy at age 24, regularly. But in 1961 he wrote, “I am convinced that when a man tells a woman he loves her, he only means that he desires her and that the only perfect love in this world is that of a father for his son.” (Waxman, Olivia B. ( Dec. 25, 2023). “The True Story Behind Michael Mann’s Ferrari.” Time.)
In 1957, the 60-year old Ferrari was living a double life with a house in town with his wife and a country villa hidden in the country with his mistress and son. He was facing bankruptcy and he desperately needed his racing team to win the Mille Miglia. Early in the film, when he comes home for breakfast, his suspicious wife takes out a revolver and nearly shoots his head off. This gets everyone’s attention.
There are some outstanding cinematic racing moments in “Ferrari.” The sequence involving the final Mille Miglia with the death of 10 spectators, five of them children, drives home the odd nature of death-defying race car driving as a sport.
Aside from that, the casting in “Ferrari” is amiss. What happened to casting Italians, or even Italian-Americans, as Italians? Why is Spanish Penelope Cruz, though absolutely fabulous in the role, playing Ferrari’s Italian wife? Why cast American Adam Driver and not someone Italian, or even Italian-American, as Ferrari? And why is American Shailene Woodley his mistress? What happened to some approximation of realism in documenting the life of a famous Italian?
But then there is the story. My guess is that Mann was too in love with the idea of Ferrari to insist on a tighter plot development and editing. Somewhere in the middle, my 45-year old son, who had specifically asked to see the film with me, fell asleep. I only noticed when I awoke myself.
Yes, “Ferrari,” a film about break-neck speed racing, adultery, self-centeredness, and a tragic car crash ironically turns out to be a little slow in the middle. Mann and Driver just couldn’t ever make us care about the main character or rev up much interest about car-racing or Ferrari, despite moments of passion and tragedy.
Credits
Director: Michael Mann
Screenplay: Troy Kennedy Martin
Based on “Enzo Ferrari: The Man, the Cars, the Races, the Machine” (1991) by Brock Yates
Producers: PJ van Sandwijk, Marie Savare, John Lesher, Thomas Hayslip, John Friedberg, Andrea Iervolino, Monika Bacardi, Gareth West, Lars Sylvest, Thorsten Schumacher and Laura Rister.
Cast: Adam Driver, Penelope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Sarah Gadon, Gabriel Leone, Jack O’Connell and Patrick Dempsey
Cinematography: Erik Messerschmidt
Editor: Pietro Scalia
Music: Daniel Pemberton
Release: Dec. 25, 2023
Official Website and how to see: https://www.ferrari-film.com
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