Cars and men. Men and cars. Excuse me, Mann and cars. Michael Mann doing a story about Enzo Ferrari seems like a match made in movie heaven. There are times in Ferrari that the dream pairing in your head pays off, and even when there’s some kinks to work out, the top notch cast is there to pick up the slack. And have an aperitif or two along the way.
It’s summer 1957. All Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) wants to do is win races like the Mille Miglia. But Enzo has a bunch of other things going on he’s gotta solve first. His drivers Alfonso de Portago (Gabriel Leone), Piero Taruffi (Patrick Dempsey), and Peter Collins (Jack O’Connell) are constantly bickering over who the star of the show should be. Enzo’s company is in dire financial straits, forcing him to negotiate with his own wife Laura (Penelope Cruz) on a course of financial solvency. But that’s not as easy as it seems either, since Laura is getting angrier with Enzo’s infidelity with Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley), who’s making things hard too because she wants her hidden love child with Enzo to come out of the shadows.
If you can’t tell from the synopsis, those expecting an electric car racing movie will be disappointed. This is more character drama than action movie. Michael Mann has a history of making movies about men who are the best at their jobs, and here he’s basically showing the consequences of preventing one of those men from doing the job he was supposed to do. Some of these other “issues” are Enzo’s fault, some not. But regardless, he’s taken away from his passion to deal with these other “distractions” as he would probably say. Watching Enzo try to put out one fire when another pops up, changing his tactics fire to fire, is the movie’s big race, not the Mille Miglia. And Mann gives way and let’s Driver and his scene partners cook. The best stuff is when the perennially magnifico Penelope Cruz shows up, reigning down hell fire and brimstone, a 5 alarm fire for Enzo. But Driver’s pretty great everywhere else to, handling all these complications in his life in very old school Italian ways, just so he can get back on the track where he’s happiest.
Mann bookends this character drama with 2 racing sequences. But the opening number sets an ominous tone early for the type of movie we’re about to see. 1957’s cars were designed for speed not especially safety, so any false move could have deadly consequences. Through all of Enzo’s deal making, Mann is slowly trying to erode the super bad vibes to get everyone ready for the big Mille Miglia. I won’t spoil anything here, but the movie Mann puts on screen beforehand leads to what happens in the 1957 race. It’s a weird choice, even stranger than releasing this movie around Christmastime. Logically it makes sense, but emotionally, it leaves the Ferrari lacking that something special the best movies of the year possess.
At least Michael Mann is back? And more importantly, we get Adam Driver back in Italy, playing another famous Italian socialite. Can we keep doing this forever and ever? It would be funny watching him go “Et Tu Brute?” in Kenneth Branagh’s Julius Caesar surrounded by a cast of pure Italian actors in the silliest casting joke ever.