Just the word ‘Ferrari’ conjures up glamour, opulence and luxury and it’s for that reason we are unlikely ever to get ‘Mazda the movie’. Director Michael Mann returns after an eight year hiatus with the story of Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) from a script by the late Troy Kennedy Martin who gave us the great car caper ‘The Italian Job’. This is a far more sombre affair and Enzo Ferrari was also having an affair with Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley) with whom he had fathered a son having lost a son with his wife Laura (Penelope Cruz) and neither have really got over his death each paying a daily though separate visit to their son’s mausoleum. It’s a first glimpse that Enzo is a less than sympathetic having kept his son with his mistress a secret whilst Laura still grieves and struggles to cope with the loss despite being reconciled to her husband’s womanizing.
But it’s against this fractious background and tempestuous marriage that their company is facing bankruptcy losing sales to Maserati and Enzo needs a way out refusing to let other car company buy in and therefore having to dilute his singular vision for his cars. It’s not made any easier that half of his business assets are in Laura’s name and he needs the volatile and embittered wife to sign them over to him so as to allow him to make the decisions that could keep the company afloat. ‘My factory is built on racing’ and he elects to enter his cars into the Mille Miglia race, a huge, and now defunct, event that saw cars zip around Italy at high speed with little to no safety precautions installed beyond a few bales of hay on street corners – it’s as effective an approach to road safety as Boris Johnson’s to birth control with his mistresses. His belief is that a winning the race will drive sales and to that end he is single minded in achieving it and on occasion with tragic results. The races are thrillingly shot but there are enduring images of tragedy – one at a test track whilst another in the race is utterly horrifying and shocking and once seen, wholly unforgettable.
As a man Ferrari comes over as charmless with little empathy for others, concerned more with his business above anything else and it’s hard to see his appeal to women. As always Cruz is great in her role but Woodley has little to do on screen. But Ferrari really comes alive in its racing scenes but the film lacks the commercial appeal and accessibility of James Magnold’s ‘Le Mans 66’ (aka ‘Ford v Ferrari’ ) and really what fans of director of director Mann really want from him now is his sequel to Heat
Related feature : ‘Le Mans 66’ (aka ‘Ford v Ferrari’ ) reviewed
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Here’s the Ferrari trailer….
