Ferrari (2023)

124 min
Directed by Michael Mann

Set during the summer of 1957. Ex-racecar driver, Enzo Ferrari, is in crisis. Bankruptcy stalks the company he and his wife, Laura, built from nothing ten years earlier. Their tempestuous marriage struggles with the mourning for one son and the...

776 22 16

2.8%

1:1

6.8

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kurisu1974

Those silly accents don't work for me sorry.

8 months ago

Ferrari is at a bit of a crossroads in terms of my film tastes. On the one hand, while I'm absolutely not a car guy (can't even drive!), I do like a good racing movie. On the other, the biopic is one of my least favorite genres. And Ferrari is more biopic than it is about racing, making it perhaps the quietest, least exciting movie Michael Mann ever made. Being a period piece seems to also rob it of Mann's trademark neon style, at least until the final race (final? ONLY race) starts at the top of Act 3, on a rainy night. We catch up with Enzo Ferrari at the most depressing time in his biography, and most of the film is people whispering at each other with Italian accents (while also be adverse to casting ANY Italian, by which I mean even Italian-American, actors in any part of substance), all of very variable quality. I could spin my web of literary criticism here, and say it's about a man with a vision when it comes to racing failing to implement it in his own life, where he is stuck in the past, paying for past mistakes, also unable to streamline it like one of his cars. But I'm not sure the film really makes that resonate strongly enough. Maybe you're just too distracted waiting for vroom vroom sequences to really see the family drama in those terms, and it's better appreciated on a second viewing. Certainly, Penelope Cruz deserves that second look as Ferrari's righteous, embittered and justifiably unreasonable wife. Her subplot uncovering Enzo's secret mistress seems a distraction, but it's actually the most involving part of the film.

8 months ago