Susan Granger’s review of “Ferrari” (Neon/STX International)
If racing cars is your passion, perhaps you might enjoy Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” but I found it frustrating in so many ways.
It’s ostensibly a deep dive into the pivotal summer of 1957 when Italian industrialist Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) almost lost control of the prestigious automobile company he and his wife Laura (Penelope Cruz) founded in Modena.
Scripted by Troy Kennedy Martin, based on motorsports journalist Brock Yates’ 1991 biography Enzo Ferrari: The Man, The Car, The Races, The Machine, it’s disjointed and – at times – barely coherent.
Enzo Ferrari is still in mourning; his 24 year-old son died the previous year. Given the opening montage of careening cars, one might assume he died in a fiery crash but – no – eventually, it’s revealed that Dino had muscular dystrophy. Crashes consume other characters later on.
Called ‘Commendatore’ (‘Commander’), Enzo is consumed with every detail of the mechanics and design of his fleet of Formula I ‘racing red’ cars, their hoods adorned with a prancing black stallion emblem that he’d seen on the downed SPAD S.XIII fighter of Italy’s greatest W.W.I ace, Count Francesco Baracca.
Downshifting to home, Laura simmers with sorrow and anger. She’s aware of Enzo’s philandering yet, given her stock majority and freehold on the factory, she wields the upper hand in business decisions.
But when a banker inadvertently refers to Enzo’s two homes, Laura suddenly realizes that Enzo is also living with his longtime mistress Lina Lardi (miscast uber-American Shailene Woodley) and their 12-year-old son Piero (Giuseppe Festinese). Laura’s resentment and rage surface with a vengeance.
Meanwhile, stoic Enzo is focused on the upcoming Mille Miglia competition that encompasses 1,000 miles across Italy’s bucolic countryside – with cars careening through towns – their streets lined with bales of hay to protect spectators.
Enzo is depending on veteran Piero Taruffi (underutilized Patrick Dempsey) and ambitious Spaniard Alfonso de Portago (Gabriel Leone), whose entourage includes actress Linda Christian (Sarah Gadon), just divorced from actor Tyrone Power.
There are spectacular set-pieces, chronicled by cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt, who notes: “All the racing is real there’s no green screen. One of the things that was very important to Michael (Mann) was that the cars should go the speeds that they are prescribed.”
The horrifying accident that claimed several lives, including children, was shot in a continuous take utilizing six cameras. A special effects team rigged a self-driving car that could hit the required speed, launch into the air and tumble before landing in a ditch.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Ferrari” flags in with a 5, playing in theaters.
