After an eight-year absence, Michael Mann returns to action with “Ferrari,” a chic biopic starring Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz and Shailene Woodley.
What is it about ?
It’s the summer of 1957. Behind the spectacle of Formula 1, former racer Enzo Ferrari is in crisis. Bankruptcy threatens the factory he and his wife, Laura, built from scratch ten years ago.
Their unstable marriage was rocked by the loss of their son, Dino, a year earlier. Ferrari struggles to recognize his son Piero with Lina Lardi. Meanwhile, its drivers’ passion for victory pushes them to the limit as they embark on the perilous 1,000-mile race across Italy, the Mille Miglia.
Ferrari, a film written by Kennedy-Martin and David Rayfield, directed by Michael Mann with Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz, Shailene Woodley..
Who is it with?
To play Enzo Ferrari, Michael Mann set his sights on Adam Driver who composes a man who does nothing by halves. For example, he tells his racers that they should be prepared to die to win in the name of the Ferrari brand.
He equates racing with war, which makes sense to him since Italy and its people are still reeling from the trauma of World War II.
The film begins with Enzo leaving the bed of Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley), whom he met during the war and with whom he had a child. He pulls his car out of the driveway so as not to wake them, before rushing back to his wife, Laura Ferrari (Penélope Cruz), who is furious and points her gun at her husband.
In a less important role but a fun wink, we discover a peroxidized Patrick Dempsey (Grey’s Anatomy) in the role of Piero Taruffi, one of Ferrari’s elite racers. We know the actor’s passion for car racing, having even participated in the 24 hours of Le Mans. Jack O’Connell also plays a driver for the Ferrari team.
STX Entertainment
It’s worth checking out ?
Contrary to what one might think, Michael Mann most often keeps Ferrari away from the circuits, but when he gets behind the wheel, the spectator is amazed. The Mille Miglia race is captured in action with all the madness and unexpected events that show how dangerous this passion is.
The racers crash, then get into each other’s cars, leaving their wrecks behind. Thousands of people crowd into turns in defiance of common sense.
But the whole of Italy seems to be stopping for this large-scale competition. This race also includes one of the most poignant and shocking sequences in Michael Mann’s filmography and promises to stay etched on the retinas of spectators for a long time.
Mann excels at making us understand how exciting and addictive running can be, before pulling the rug out from under us to show us how everything can change at any moment.
STX Entertainment
Enzo intimate
But Ferrari is a two-headed film because it spends almost more time focusing on Enzo’s loves: Lina, with whom he wants to be and who wants to give his name to their son, and Laura, who is both brilliant and terrifying, and for whom he still feels a certain passion.
Shailene Woodley, as Lina, has the unfortunate task of playing the most caring and least dynamic of these love interests. But she does the best she can with what she’s given, despite occasionally forgetting the Italian accent.
We open a parenthesis here, but the choice to have the actors play in English with an Italian accent – like in The New Look but with a French accent – has something both disconcerting and outdated.
STX Entertainment
The real performance of the film
Driver is very good as Ferrari, able to play heartbroken one moment, then control and power the next. But the real strength of Ferrari lies in one performance: that of Penélope Cruz, who dominates each of his scenes. Electric, a veritable whirlwind of sorrow, anger, jealousy and absolute power.
Regardless of Enzo’s power, Laura knows how to wield influence. She is the real brains that keeps the company afloat, even when her actions may seem shocking.
Penélope Cruz’s performance is not only the strong point of the film, it is also probably the best performance of her English-speaking career (all the films she made with Pedro Almodóvar constitute unassailable masterpieces).
Lorenzo Sisti
A devouring passion
The challenge for Enzo during the film is above all to try to avoid bankruptcy. The company doesn’t build enough cars and it needs outside financing, otherwise it will go bankrupt.
While Ferrari complains that its rivals – particularly Maserati – only want to race to sell cars, it says it sells cars to race.
There is only one goal left for Enzo: to win the Mille Miglia with his team of drivers. With business in trouble, his prospects for victory doubtful, and him torn between Lina and Laura, Ferrari captures a period in Enzo’s life that is integral not only to his personal life, but also to the world of racing and cars in general.
Two films in one, but two successful films.
Ferrari is available on Prime Video