Rating: R | Runtime: 130 minutes
Release Date: December 25th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Neon
Director(s): Michael Mann
Writer(s): Troy Kennedy Martin / Brock Yates (book Enzo Ferrari: The Man, The Cars, The Races, The Machine)

When a mother interferes in this business, death usually follows.

The movie Ferrari is a good metaphor for the vehicles Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) created. Beautiful. Sleek. Powerful. But, most importantly, a soulless machine. From the very start of Michael Mann’s film, we learn that life is complex. That despite all our best efforts, ambitions, fears, and hopes, we are beholden to the world around us. All it takes is one unfortunate misstep to ruin everything and the only way to survive that existential crisis of mortality is to steel oneself from ever letting the emotional fallout of such inevitable tragedies change your course.

That seems to be the lesson in Troy Kennedy Martin’s script (adapted from Brock Yates biography). Yes, men like Enzo can mourn their friends in private. In their minds. But to show weakness in public is a death sentence. So, they delude themselves into believing they have some grand purpose beyond simply enjoying life and loving their families. They talk about legacy and pride and how fear is a liability rather than a strength. Fear will get you killed, but hubris will make you a martyr. A hero.

And yet that lack of fear is what gets Enzo into so much trouble. He doesn’t worry about hurting his wife and business partner Laura (Penélope Cruz is very good) when starting an affair with Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley) during the war. His conscience didn’t stop him. His humanity didn’t make him question his actions. He deserved to be happy at the expense of those who loved him. He deserved to do whatever he wanted while making sure they couldn’t. Their actions had to take his success into consideration and his didn’t need to worry about their sorrow.

It’s the same with his drivers. His employees. The press. Everyone is a pawn. Even his own bastard son who wants nothing more than to take his name for his Confirmation. How will that affect the Ferrari brand? How will it affect Laura’s state of mind and thus the Ferrari brand? How will needing to think about it distract Enzo from the impending Mille Miglia race and thus the need to inject capital into the company and thus the Ferrari brand? That’s what matters. That’s what motivates his every move. Those brief moments of honesty and compassion tussling young Piero’s (Giuseppe Festinese) hair? Exceptions proving the rule.

Does Ferrari use this truth that’s baked into its very DNA to judge or comment on it, though? No. And that, to me, is a mistake. By not showing the actions of this callous, one-track-minded legend of racing, sports cars, and Italy itself with purpose, it condones them. It says men in his position are allowed to act that way because they employ thousands of people and thus carry the burden of forsaking their humanity to make money. Who thinks that’s a worthwhile message for today’s world? A man on the brink of bankruptcy leveraging those in his control to stay solvent by letting them die to achieve that goal?

Sorry, but no. I felt nothing for him. Nothing for his company. And, by extension, nothing for the central race. The stakes are shifted off the racers. Off victory. Off everything but whether Ferrari will prove marketable enough to stay afloat. So, Gabriel Leone, Patrick Dempsey, and Jack O’Connell are mere afterthoughts. More pawns to a story that attempts to draw a through line between unavoidable tragedy and negligent tragedy as though someone like Enzo Ferrari could ever comprehend the depth of emotion found via the comparison beyond empty words.

Dino dies? Long live the new son. A racer dies? Resumés from replacements abound. Bystanders die simply wanting to admire Enzo’s creations? How much money will it take to forgive, forget, and let him risk doing it again? The answer is zero. We love our entertainment and vicarious fantasies way too much to hold anyone in power accountable. We’d rather give them glacially paced Oscar-bait biopics that pretend cold callousness is a trait of greatness rather than evil.

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Adam Driver in FERRARI; courtesy of Neon.