Ferrari (15)

Former driver and automotive mogul Enzo Ferrari faces the prospect of losing the company he has spent 10 years building with his wife Laura. The marriage is under intense strain because Enzo prefers to spend time with Lina Lardi, mother of his surviving son Pietro. To revitalise the business and increase orders for custom-made cars, Enzo gambles everything on assembling a winning team for the Mille Miglia race in the summer of 1957.

LondonNet Film Review

Ferrari (15) Film Review from LondonNet

At a pivotal moment in Michael Mann’s biopic of one of the key figures in motor racing, Enzo Ferrari proudly raises a glass to his team of drivers and technicians and salutes the perilous sport they adore as “our deadly passion, our terrible joy”. His inspirational words come shortly after his best driver, Eugenio Castellotti (portrayed on screen by real-life racer Marino Franchitti), has been fatally injured on the Modena test track. Mann stages the gruesome scene with elan…

The horrible yet bewitching contradictions of Enzo’s words are evident in Ferrari, a stylish yet emotionally hollow dramatisation of an annus horribilis for the automotive mogul, which culminated in manslaughter charges. Screenwriter Troy Kennedy Martin can’t find top gear when his characters abandon their turbocharged creations and engage face-to-face. The machines are far more interesting than the flawed men behind the wheel. Thankfully, Mann’s picture is blessed with a fiery performance from Penelope Cruz as Enzo’s pragmatic wife, who insists her husband’s second son with another woman must not be publicly recognised with the Ferrari name while she still breathes. Adam Driver seems muted in comparison, hiding his eyes behind sunglasses for extended periods as he grapples with an inconsistent accent and his mogul’s failings as a husband.

When we meet former driver Enzo (Driver) in 1957, he faces the prospect of losing the company he has spent 10 years building with his wife Laura (Cruz). Their marriage is under strain because Enzo prefers to spend time with Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley), the mother of his surviving son Pietro (Giuseppe Fesitine), whose existence has been kept secret from Laura as she mourns the recent loss of their 24-year-old son Dino to muscular dystrophy. When Laura stumbles upon the truth, she is apoplectic, suggesting that Enzo abandoned his family when she had already provided him with an heir.

“As it turns out, one was not enough,” coldly retorts Enzo’s mother Adalgisa (Daniela Piperno). Enzo’s personal life implodes but he hopes to inject life back into the business by assembling a winning team for the physically gruelling Mille Miglia race. His five-strong squad of drivers includes veteran Piero Taruffi (Patrick Dempsey), Peter Collins (Jack O’Connell) and exciting new arrival Alfonso de Portago (Gabriel Leone). However, arch-rivals Maserati will also enter the race and they have Stirling Moss (Ben Collins) in one of their cars.

Ferrari runs smoothly on four wheels and Mann stages racing sequences with brio including a jaw-dropping conclusion to the Mille Miglia. Once engines are idle, we struggle to care about anyone except for Laura, who is the driving force behind the brand’s survival in testing financial times. Co-star Driver remains safely buckled in the passenger seat.

– Kim Hu