Ferrari: The Off-Balance Review.
Buckle up.
And we’re back! Welcome to 2024, Off-Balancers. I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday season.
Here’s to a great year!
Ryan.
Success, no matter the venture, comes at a cost.
But what if you’re willing to pay it?
For Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver), in his all-consuming pursuit of greatness, that price has always been worth it, from his time as a racer, to a businessman of prominence - but as he is beset with chaos on all-sides, he realizes something might finally have to give.
Side-stepping the “origin story” set-up that defines most biopics, Ferrari, the newest film from director Michael Mann (Heat, Ali, Public Enemies) which released on Christmas Day, instead focuses almost entirely on Enzo Ferrari during 1957, presenting three concurrent storylines:
His desperate financial situation. Despite being a name known the world over, his company is insolvent and bleeding money, their racing investments, simply not turning a profit. But to potentially accept an investment partner would mean giving up control, something Ferrari refuses.
The building of Ferrari’s team for the impending (and historically significant) 1957 Mille Miglia, the gruelling endurance race throughout the Italian countryside.
And the complexities of his personal life: his marriage to wife and company co-founder, Laura (Penélope Cruz), is volatile and crumbling. Grief over the recent death of their son, Dino, is compounded by Laura’s discovery of her husband’s second life: his decades of adultery, having led to a young son with long-time mistress Lina (Shailene Woodley).
Ultimately though, try as it might, Ferrari, can’t escape comparisons to another recent racing film, 2019’s Ford vs Ferrari.
Now, to be fair, it isn’t entirely 1-for-1. Mann has been trying to make Ferrari for decades, the film, lingering in various stages of development for years (enough so that sole credited screenwriter, Troy Kennedy Martin, died in 2009).
But it is unavoidable.
With Ford vs Ferrari, director James Mangold spotlighted the efforts of former driver turned designer Carol Shelby (Matt Damon) and driver-engineer Ken Miles (Christian Bale) as, hired by Ford, they worked to build a car to defeat Ferrari at the 1966 Le Mans (with Enzo Ferrari portrayed in that film, as a secondary antagonist, by Italian actor Remo Girone).
The catch though, is that Mangold balanced his high-octane racing sequences (which resulted in two Oscars for editing) with genuine character work, a tricky balance even the best of sports films can struggle with.
The result then, for better or worse, is that Ferrari arrives as something of an unintentional prequel to Mangold’s film, shifting the perspective to Ferrari, a decade earlier, during a critical period of his life.
It is successful?
At times.
The movie is anchored by the performances of its leads, Driver and Cruz, whose sparring, both emotional and verbal, is a highlight.
Driver, for many, will always be best known for his work on the Star Wars sequel trilogy but his later projects have allowed him to showcase a stronger sense of versatility. Ferrari is no different. Driver’s Enzo is a man who demands control, from his racing team and engineers sure, but also himself. He moves through the film on the razor’s edge, projecting little outward, nothing that could possibly be used against him.
It is in the moments this guise falls, however, that, despite his personal failings, he becomes human, just enough so.
Driver, as expected, plays it all perfectly.
Cruz though, easily delivers the movie’s best performance. Laura, as co-founder, is as much responsible for Ferrari’s success as her husband is but as their marriage slowly collapses, overwhelmed with grief and deceit, it falls on her to balance personal desires with the company’s, despite growing misgivings.
Cruz is terrific in every scene she appears, Laura’s rage, heartbreak over her son’s death and continued, conflicted love towards Enzo, creating a character that is rich in depth and detail. She gives it her all, despite having not as much raw material to work with, nor the option to expand any further beyond the film’s established framework.
It is frustrating then, that little else, in the movie at large, can match them.
Woodley’s character, Lina, despite being the film’s third lead, is given nothing but a handful of scenes, her relationship with Ferrari, prodded at but not truly explored at any real length. That portion of the narrative, overall importance considered, then comes across as pretty underbaked.
The same can be said for the Ferrari racing team (Gabriel Leone’s Alfonso de Portago and Patrick Dempsey’s Piero Taruffi, most notably) who feel severely underused, even if the story being told, generally, is not their own - given the film’s crux being a race they participate in, their characters aren’t given nearly enough of an emotional buy-in, their matching red Ferraris, too often, blending into one.
It is particularly disappointing, especially if you’re familiar with the real-world history going in.
This extends as well, to the action, the racing itself, which occasionally delivers but too often, feels procedural, lacking a proper sense of momentum.
The editing, shot selection and cinematography all, are slow, inconsistent with what is being presented on screen and painfully stagnant, even as cars whip through tight corners on the test track or small villages throughout the Italian countryside. Given Mann’s body of work as an action-first filmmaker, this should be a highlight.
Instead, much like Ferrari overall, it is a missed opportunity.
There is something to be said for what the film does deliver (a look at a man, who, for most, is only known for the cars that carry his name) but it isn’t enough to support the overall framework.
For every moment of emotional intensity brought forth by Driver or Cruz, there is something that doesn’t click - whether it is the lacking action or the movie’s horrendous accent work (Woodley is the worst offender - her natural American accent is far too prevalent, given she’s playing a native Italian).
Ferrari isn’t a total wash. There are pieces to like here. But they don’t come together, consistently, to deliver a complete experience.
Maybe on the next lap around.