About the film (courtesy of Neon):
It is the summer of 1957. Behind the spectacle of Formula 1, ex-racer Enzo Ferrari is in crisis. Bankruptcy threatens the factory he and his wife, Laura built from nothing ten years earlier. Their volatile marriage has been battered by the loss of their son, Dino a year earlier. Ferrari struggles to acknowledge his son Piero with Lina Lardi. Meanwhile, his drivers’ passion to win pushes them to the edge as they launch into the treacherous 1,000-mile race across Italy, the Mille Miglia.
I revved my engine with anticipation for Ferrari, a film promising a high-octane plunge into the life of the automotive legend himself. Instead, I found myself stuck in neutral, sputtering fumes of frustration by the curb.
Adam Driver puts on a valiant show as Enzo Ferrari, radiating a glacial charisma, but the script starves him of anything approaching depth. He’s a caricature of obsession, bouncing between tantrums over financial woes and icy pronouncements about his precious machines. We never glimpse the spark that ignited this passionate inferno, or the man beneath the bluster.
Penelope Cruz shines briefly as Laura Ferrari, but her character is tragically sidelined, reduced to a nagging wife and grieving mother. Their relationship, a potential crucible of complexity, is instead a flickering neon sign of resentment and neglect.
The film boasts beautiful Italian landscapes and impeccable period detail, but the racing sequences lack the visceral thrill you’d expect. They feel like footnotes, mere pit stops in Enzo’s emotional rollercoaster. The true engine of Ferrari, his internal world, remains frustratingly shrouded.
Director Michael Mann seems unsure what story he wants to tell. Is it a tragedy of hubris? A portrait of grief? A love letter to speed? It contorts itself into all three, losing focus and momentum with every gear shift. Sadly, in many ways, this film reminds me very much of House of Gucci (2021) where it struggles in capturing a true authentic feel in relaying the historic message it’s trying to tell.
Ferrari sputters to a finish, leaving you with a hollow feeling akin to watching a classic racecar rusting in a forgotten garage. It’s a missed opportunity, a story with the potential for greatness left stranded on the side of the road.
If you’re craving a deep dive into the Ferrari legend, this film is a pit stop you can safely skip. Keep searching, and maybe you’ll find a movie that truly captures the roar of his legacy.
A disappointing missed opportunity, beautiful to look at but empty under the hood, Ferrari is only in theaters starting on Christmas Day, December 25th.
