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Tripwire Reviews Michael Mann’s Ferrari
Seeing Red
Tripwire’s senior editor Andrew Colman reviews Michael Mann’s Ferrari, out in UK cinemas from Boxing Day, 26 December…
Ferrari
Director: Michael Mann
Stars: Adam Driver, Shailene Woodley, Penélope Cruz, Giuseppe Festinese, Derek Hill
There’ve been several movies about the mercurial Enzo Ferrari, who clearly has gained some kind of mythical status, at least in Italy, beyond Formula One and prohibitively expensive sports cars. As one would expect in current cinema, it’s polished, beautiful to look at, but somewhat diffident and muted when it comes to getting inside the title character. Or maybe that’s just the nature of the beast when it comes to biopics – the underlying dichotomy being sacrificing authenticity for drama. And although it’s not entirely lacking in that department, it rarely comes to life simply because we’re talking about a monomaniacal figure who had one sole obsession, but just happened to be very good at it.
The aptly named Adam Driver is a revelation as Ferrari, playing as he does against type, and the bucolic cinematography, location footage and attention to period detail are top drawer as one would expect. You learn of Ferrari’s blinkered, ruthless dedication to his cars, brand and reputation while trying to balance the books and attempt mergers, not to mention perpetuating rivalries (notably with fellow Italian racing car company Maserati). He’s ultra-obsessive, a martinet who is serially aloof and cold-blooded towards the press, his engineers, drivers and business partners, allowing nothing to stand in his way, not even the inevitable fatalities that were commonplace in the early Drivers Championship era.
On the domestic front there’s his unfaithfulness to his wife Laura (Penelope Cruz, excellent as one would expect but her role is barely more than a turn) – he has a son through his mistress, the irony being that he lost his first and only son (and designated heir) with Laura to illness. This subplot (the son he had with his mistress Lina Lardi) is perhaps the only time that we see beyond Ferrari’s steely resolve, as this boy is as equally infatuated with motor sport as he is. Effectively the exacting preparation and white heat of the actual races are the sideshow – compulsive but not all that consequential, given that our hardened protagonist is indifferent to the occasional bout of horrendous carnage due to his racing cars and the impact, both actual and psychological, that they have on the community. But even then this component of the film is too faint and insubstantial to generate sufficient drama, even if it does eventually lead to a resolution and a genuinely good closure scene between him and his wife.
The impression here is that the real life Ferrari would’ve been considerably less sympathetic, but that’s genre, and this film steadfastly refuses to really take any chances. Despite that there are one or two scenes featuring car crashes which are excessively graphic, and very much out of kilter with the rest of the movie – if this had been a psychological drama their inclusion might’ve made more sense, but this is a ghost tour through the manifest splendour of Emilia Romagna and its gauze-filtered serenity. Everything is alluringly old-fashioned and pleasingly vintage in this hermetic corner of the world, enough indeed to make you want to be there. As is the case with such slickly produced biographical movies, it does tie things up quite well. Overall however it’s great to look at but it’s a gaudy souped up travelogue. Worth seeing once, especially if you’re interested in the history of motor racing.
Ferrari is in UK cinemas from Tuesday. Here’s the film’s trailer
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