“You win on Sunday; you sell on Monday.” Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver)
Except for the fine racing docudramas like Ford v Ferrari, not many mainstream racing movies recently can compare with Ferrari for visceral and psychological impact. Director Michael Mann not only has some of the best racing sequences of the Mille Miglia, the thousand-mile open-road race around Italy including right through Rome, but he also captures the no less tame race in Ferrari’s own family. The bright-red colored cars, rosso corsa or racing red, are emblematic of the race’s passion and bloody danger, just like his life.
Adam Driver gives the best performance of his life portraying the charismatic Italian icon, Enzo Ferrari, with a scowl to strike fear and a cool to help us understand that Ferrari and Italy are synonymous. Not only are there racing events that help sell his extravagant cars, there is soap-opera grade turmoil over his hitherto unknown mistress, Lina (Shailene Woodley), his bastard son, and his wife, Laura (Penelope Cruz).
Woodley’s role is the weakest as she slips into anger over her covert relationship and pushes for her 10-year-old son to have the famous name he deserves. Next to the seasoned actress, Cruz, Woodley is miscast.
His wife, Laura, is crucial to funding his business, which now hangs on to winning the race for its survival. Throughout, however, he is even keeled and never better than when he counsels his team on what it takes to win.
Some of the pep talk is downright existential. Not for nothing do his workers call him Commendatore or Commander. Nor is this serious adventure to be confused with the ultimately campy House of Gucci and Driver’s portrayal of each titular hero. He can be seen in the black and white faux newsreel at the beginning of the film with goggles and an Alfa Romeo.
Mann is a master of racing pieces along with exceptional cinematography and sound design to make Ferrari memorable and give us all a pure cinematic landscape that relaxes before we struggle over the ultimate race, Oscar.
Ferrari
Director: Michael Mann (Miami Vice, Collateral, Heat)
Screenplay: Troy Kennedy Martin (The Italian Job)
Cast: Adam Driver (Marriage Story), Penelope Cruz
Run Time: 2h 4m
Rating: R
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts NPR’s It’s Movie Time and hosts Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take out of WCBE 90.5 FM. Contact him at JohnDeSando52@gmail.com
