After his work in House of Gucci, you might have thought that Adam Driver wouldn't want to play any more Italians. One English-speaking Italian might be enough for any career.
But here he is as Enzo Ferrari, the Italian sports car entrepreneur who suffers from the loss of a beloved 24-year-old son, neglects his wife (Penelope Cruz), and carries on a long-standing affair with a younger woman (Shailene Woodley) with whom he has another son.
And, then, there's racing.
Ferrari affords director Michael Mann the opportunity to recreate the Mille Miglia, a grueling 1,500-kilometer race that gives the movie its most harrowing twist.
The drivers in Ferrari reminded me of bullfighters -- proud, arrogant men who know they're risking their lives.
Once a driver himself, Ferrari encourages his drivers not to waver at crucial points in a race, even when two cars are trying to make the same turn. He makes it seem as if their manhood is on the line.
That's tough stuff, and as Driver plays him, Ferrari steels himself against paying an emotional price for any damage that might result from his single-minded commitment to winning.
Mann's movie unfolds during three months of 1957, a year in which Ferrari battled to save his company from bankruptcy while dealing with an embittered wife who had leverage over him. She owned half of his company.
With another fine performance, Cruz creates a character who treats her wandering husband with simmering contempt that threatens boil into rage. No patsy, Cruz's Laura also wants to protect her stake in the company.
Ferrari eventually learns that he'll have to shed his speed-boutique mentality and sell a minimum of 400 cars per year to keep his company on the road. Since its founding in 1947, Ferrari had been selling a few cars a year to well-heeled buyers.
Lacking capital, Ferrari assays what he must risk to find big-time backing, at one point from Ford. Business and sport converge. To secure financing, Ferrari also believes he must win the Mille Miglia.
Mann (Collateral and The Insider) gained prominence with TV's Miami Vice. Early movies such as Thief (1981) and Manhunter (1986) were small gems. Many count Mann's Heat (1995) among their favorite movies.
Mann resists the temptation to over-stylize Ferrari, and in Driver, he finds an actor who communicates the torment beneath Ferrari's composed facade. Ferrari knows he has subordinated other elements in his life to his racing obsession.
To his credit, Mann also shows a softer side Ferrari mostly keeps hidden. We see it in tender scenes between Ferrari and his young son, a boy Laura insists cannot inherit the Ferrari name until she dies, another source of contention.
The racing sequences are exciting but Mann backs them up with plenty of off-the-track intrigue.
More than a pure racing movie and less than a comprehensive bio-pic, Ferrari focuses on a man who’s trying to hold his life and company together. He and others pay a price for his efforts.
Ferrari may hit an occasional bump, but Mann, now 80, knows where to find the dramatic fuel that keeps his movie running.
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