Michael Mann Delivers a Captivating, Confounding Ride With 'Ferrari'

By Petr Navovy | Film | December 27, 2023 |

By Petr Navovy | Film | December 27, 2023 |

I can’t remember the last time I was as conflicted going into the cinema as I was heading in to see Michael Mann’s Ferrari, a passion project the legendary director has been trying to make happen since the turn of the millennium. On the one hand, there was a story centered around motor sports—something that I oscillate between being indifferent to and having an active dislike of—but on the other, it was being told by the director of some of my favorite films of all time. Roger Ebert famously said, ‘It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.’ That is an ethos I passionately believe in, but would it be enough this time? Who would win in this riveting tug-of-war between subject and author?

Mann’s Ferrari takes place in the summer of 1957. It’s been a decade since former race car driver Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) and his wife Laura (Penelope Cruz) established their car factory and company in the city of Modena and helped it rise from the ruins of World War II. In that time, Ferrari (the man and the car) has become a legend—we see a local priest giving a sermon in which he contends that if Christ had manifested in modern-day Modena, he wouldn’t be unlike Ferrari, a craftsman working with metal instead of wood, a saviour—but as we join the story, everything teeters on the brink: The company is staring down the barrel of bankruptcy, and Ferrari’s personal life is a tapestry of grief, deception, and infidelity. All it will take is one thread to snag on something and the whole thing will unravel.

The events of the film revolve around its climactic centrepiece: The famous Italian endurance race, the Mille Miglia, taking place over a thousand miles, winding its way through Italy solely on public roads. The stakes are high. Ferrari knows this race is the last chance he has at restoring his company to glory. 1957 would prove to be the final edition of the Mille Miglia, and the audience’s knowledge (or lack thereof) of why this is will influence their experience of watching Ferrari. Even without knowing what happens in this race, you can feel the palpable sense of apocalyptic tension that the film expertly creates. A pall of dread hangs over the lush Italian summer, and the mood contrasts powerfully with the oft-beautiful compositions—the serene painterly landscapes that open the movie proving the only moments of peace here. Something has to give.

I had trouble getting close to many of the characters in Ferrari, the protagonist most of all. This is by design. Ferrari has erected mile-high walls around himself to try to escape the formidable shadow of the tragic death of his and Laura’s son, Dino, who passed away in 1956. Adam Driver has a difficult job on his hands here. Ferrari is a man closed-off, reduced by tragedy, single-minded in his focus on racing, his efforts at family life clumsy and self-destructive, and his business thinking diluted by his blinkered vision. This is no strange territory to Mann, who is responsible for some of the most compelling portrayals of professional dedication (and over-dedication) ever put to screen, but it remains a challenge for an actor to portray. We connect with humanity. Yet the performer must bury it, while still touching us with it. Driver rises to the occasion. He is more than matched by Penelope Cruz as Laura, who takes a role that in lesser hands might have come off as too broad and instead imbues it with layers upon layers of relatable pathos and relatable rage.

This isn’t by any means Mann’s first foray into the past, of course. Nevertheless, the filmmaker has become so synonymous with modernity—the city lights, the clean lines, the synth soundtracks, the pioneering digital camerawork—that Ferrari can in some ways feel like a departure. It is, and it isn’t. Mann might be the patron saint of modern urban existentialism, but below the surface there always lies the unmatched discipline of classical filmmaking craft that isn’t bound to a certain aesthetic—and that is evident throughout the film. The direction, cinematography (by The Killer’s relatively junior yet already accomplished DP Erik Messerschmidt), editing (by Pietro Scalia, of Gladiator and JFK fame), sound design, and production design (by Maria Djurkovic, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) in Ferrari are all excellent. The all-important race is brilliantly staged and shot, vibrating with kinetic energy and dread. Ferrari might also be Mann’s funniest film. It took a few moments for this to settle in, so heavy is the drama, but the script is generously punctuated with witty one-liners and retorts (all delivered in an Italian accent the quality of which varies from character to character—your mileage may vary).

Despite all this formidable craft on show, my feelings about Ferrari remain complicated. Leaving the cinema, I felt colder than I had hoped to. Not as connected as I was expecting to be. Perhaps that’s due to my sky-high expectations of Michael Mann films (even counting the unfortunate existence of Public Enemies). As it happens, however, after only sleep, I’m already starting to feel different. The weight of expectation has faded, and the reality of experience has begun to assert itself. Ferrari is a damn good film from a master filmmaker. I’m already looking forward to seeing it again to see how my relationship with it matures over time.

And, I’m sorry, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t draw attention to the fact that I avoided making an Adam Driver driving pun throughout that entire review. I think that’s quite impressive.