Ferrari

In cinemas now

There is more than a whiff of House of Gucci about Michael Mann’s implausibly dull Enzo Ferrari biopic, with the chief comparison being its odd decision to cast American actors to portray Italian characters, irrespective of whether they can do the accent or not. As was the case with Ridley Scott’s aforementioned flop, Adam Driver takes centre stage in what serves as the latest instalment of his unpredictable post-Star Wars career, delivering a Ferrari that is doubtlessly complicated but far too monotonous to ever warrant this film’s two-hour plus runtime.

Written by the late Troy Kennedy Martin, Ferrari is focused on a specific moment of its subject’s life (the summer of 1957) when both his business and marriage found themselves at crisis point. Unfortunately, neither of these burgeoning dilemmas are ever more interesting than the racing of Ferrari’s iconic cars, a high velocity act which lends this film its scant moments of intrigue and shock.

Penélope Cruz and Shailene Woodley prop Driver up as his competing love interests, with the former mostly under-utilised and definitely the best thing about the picture. Woodley, on the other hand, is unfortunately the chief culprit when it comes to struggling with the Italian accent, with her character coming across more like a perennial holidaymaker than an authentic housewife.

While Erik Messerschmidt’s cinematography and Daniel Pemberton’s score elevate proceedings slightly, it’s hard to shake the feeling that Ferrari would have been more effective had it spanned the entirety of Enzo’s life, rather than this specific chapter of both domestic and business peril.