Sports biopics about cars seem to be a prevailing sub-genre these days, but even among the throng of revving engines and actual happenings, an entry by Michael Mann would be expected to have a little something extra under the bonnet. Thus we now have Ferrari, a movie about the titular, Italian entrepreneur that aims to put us in the midst of the financial woes that occured in the late 50s while simultaneously putting us in the driving seat of the race cars at the time as they recklessly roar their way over unstable surfaces.
I’ve long since bemoaned the issues that seem inherent in the cinematic biopic and my racing knowledge begins and ends with the fact that I know a couple of real life racing personalities have cameos in Car 2, so to keep me entertained, Mann would have an extra-tough, uphill battle to hold my attention, but thankfully the man who gave us Heat, Miami Vice and plenty more besides has the traction to keep me gripped to the road.
It’s 1957 and Enzo Ferrari is finding that a life filled with dizzying highs and lows is fast catching up to him. As he and his estranged wife still mourn the year old passing of their son, Dino, their relationship is fast disintegrating which is made all the more complicated by the fact that Laura is in charge of managing the finances for the prodigious automobile manufacturing company and holds quite a number of shares.
Making things all the more tenuous is the issue of the secret family Ferrari has been raising since he had an affair with Lina Lardi during the war that has produced another son in the form of little Piero, whom his mother wants acknowledged as Ferrari’s child.
With all this swirling around, the last (but certainly not least) problem that’s peeking its head in Enzo rear view mirror is the fact that Ferrari’s company has been hemorrhaging funds and will go bankrupt unless they can find a sister company to merge with who won’t take Ferrar’s autonomy away. The quickest way to do this is to win the prestigious Mille Miglia, a thousand mile, punishing endurance race that sees cars tear through both the countryside and populated areas and Enzo begins to assemble his drivers, including confident newcomer Alfonso de Portago.
As the race looms and Ferrari attempts use his influence to get his cadre of racers to win, an innocent mistake clues the bitter Laura into the existence of Lina and Piero and the house Ferrari has bought them in order to split his time with them. As the finantial future of Ferrari hangs in the balance on multiple fronts, the race begins in ernest – can the entrepreneur keep his personal and professional life on track while staring ruin dead in the eye?
In the past, I’ve had plenty of pointed comments concerning both biopics and Michael Mann’s output in the wake of his flawless crime epic, Heat (can you believe that his last feature was Blackhat way back in 2015?), so the prospect of Ferrari was hardly enticing to me. However, passion is always a good motivator and Mann’s lifelong love of motor racing has been apparent almost as long as his affinity for telling true stories as his past movies have centred on everyone from Muhammad Ali to John Dillinger.
So it’s with this in mind that we approach Ferrari with a sense of hope as the auteur has a smart, measured hand when it comes to offering up a snapshot of men who have shaped their own legends. Firstly, Mann wisely isn’t interested in telling a birth-to-grave story that skims over a whole wealth of material in order to give us a sped up, sanitized glimpse of its subject that ends up being frustratingly incomplete and instead focuses chiefly on a moment in Enzio’s life where his world is on the verge of collapse. This proves to be a benefit as it gives us a more accurate portrait of the man as it deals just as much with the pricklier aspects of his life just as much as it zeroes in on his drive. While offering no real judgement on his often cold and abrasive way he treats his drivers and his subordinates, it does offer up explanations as he freely admits he closed off his heart somewhat after dear friends died while indulging in what Ferrari describes as his “deadly passion” or his “terrible joy”. In this respect, Adam Driver – an actor frequently known for bringing pathos to flawed, arguably unlikable characters – proves to be a great choice as he dusts off his accent from House Of Gucci and leaps into the fray, stepping into the shoes of a man whose empire was starting to sway. Wielding a wit as dry as the Arizona flats thanks to a heart hardened for his own protection, we also see how tender he could be with his secret son or how much of a dedicated family he was, even if the family in question had been started in less than honest circumstances.
On the flip side is Penelope Cruz’s vengeful Laura who turns in a performance that could have easily fell into shouty melodrama, but instead shows a woman whose marriage has all but buckled in the wake of a child’s death as is being kept on life support purely for the running of a company. Their relationship is fascinating, with their love long since calcified into professionalism, but what’s truly gripping is how the movie approaches it when Ferrari’s secrets start to slip out and it’s a tur credit to the film that it ends up being just as edge of the seat stuff as the racing is.
Speaking of the racing, Mann tackles the scenes of horsepower and cornering with a refreshingly old school approach, eschewing close up shots of pumping cylinders and flaring combustion to simply focus on speed and tangability as the racers rocket around the courses worryingingly unencumbered by roll bars, seatbelts or even a roof. The races, while obviously imperative to the story, don’t prove to be the overall focus of the film and instead are a backdrop to the drama happening around it. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t spectacular and a couple of devastating crashes that see human bodies sent pinwheeling like skittles are a chilling testament to how terrible and deadly the passion of racing could truly be.
There’s slight issues here, to be sure with the main one being – with any biopic – that the ending can be instantly be predicted with either a spot of common knowledge or a quick trip to Wikipedia; but the drama, performances, racing and the director’s firm grip on the story proves that the helmer is most definately still the Mann.
🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 