NYFF/Neon
Order and chaos vie for pole position in Ferrari, Michael Mann’s vigorous biopic about the famed Italian automaker. Painting a multifaceted portrait of the racing legend during a particular moment of personal and professional crises, the auteur’s first feature since 2015’s Blackhat hums with steely passion and pain. A tale of irreconcilable conflicts and contradictions, it may briefly fall victim to the same sorts of schisms that plague its protagonist, yet thanks to Mann’s sleek stewardship and intense performances from Adam Driver and Penélope Cruz, this adaptation of Brock Yates’ 1991 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine proves a complex character study of a pioneer torn between his warring instincts.
The closing night selection of this year’s New York Film Festival (and premiering in theaters on Dec. 25), Ferrari establishes its tone from the outset with a newsreel-esque prologue in which a young Enzo Ferrari (Driver) wins an auto race and, then, with a scene in 1957—10 years after Ferrari began producing cars—in which Enzo drives away from his home, his hands and feet working his vehicle’s pedal and gearshift with preternatural skill and confidence. In designer suits and his trademark matching sunglasses, his silver hair slicked back for maximum aerodynamism, Enzo is a man of imposing self-possession. Nonetheless, this initial glimpse is of the tycoon departing the house he covertly shares with his mistress Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley), whom he met and fell in love with during WWII, and their young son Piero—an early indication that his circumstances are (and the road ahead will be) far from smooth.
Enzo knows how to build a car but his life is a much less carefully constructed affair, and that becomes clear when he returns to his primary residence to discover his spouse Laura (Cruz) waiting for him with a pistol in hand. Laura’s fury over Enzo’s infidelity is one of many proverbial guns to his head throughout Ferrari, and that’s even before Laura discovers the existence of Lina and Piero, the latter of whom is a uniquely distressing revelation given that Enzo and Laura are still mourning the untimely demise of their sole son Alfredo. Nonetheless, as embodied by Driver, the automaker has the pedal perpetually to the metal, blazing forward with the brash sureness of someone who not only recognizes his reputation as a “national treasure” but believes it—and thus thinks that he can handle any problem, be it mechanical, familial or emotional.