Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: FERRARI [Red Sea International Film Festival 2023 - Jeddah, Saudi Arabia]

"Ferrari" (as a film), in many ways, acts like a by-the-books biopic but the context of winning and commerce is what director Michael Mann really gets to the center of in his tome about the Italian car creator whose main focus and love was racing. Seen as the closing night film at the Red Sea International Film Festival, the story is one of a singular vision but finding where that balance is never in question. Adam Driver is in one of his better places in this role (though he is always good) because with the mannerisms and change of hair, he is able to disappear nearly completely into the role. Enzo Ferrari is a practical man with practical tastes but sometimes with life experiences and consequences that are beyond his control. Penelope Cruz plays his often suffering wife Laura whom he (and she herself) put through the wringer. Thankfully we get to see one flashback of what they were like when they were younger with the same actors as it helps establish a sense of time and where they came from. This is what the film ultimately is about: time (or a lack of it).

Ferrari pushes his cars and his drivers but it is a dangerous sport. Some of the better character moments is when Ferrari is goating one of his older drivers (played by real life racer Patrick Dempsey) and the humor that is displaced (with a sense of warmth...and again, time). Dempsey just visually seems out of his place but his characterization is dead on. Shailene Woodley as Ferrari's mistress whom he has a son with and hides in a separate villa seems completely out of place. Her performance is not bad by any means but there is really not a connection, chemistry or a visual understanding of why. She just doesn't quite fit. Mann might have done better to cast an unknown or relative unknown as it would have made the relationship more believable.

The aspect also at the center of the film is about family and business and what that means relative to the egos that created it. Driver brings that completely to the screen without the camera mugging on him. That might also have to do with director. In "House Of Gucci", Ridley Scott approached it differently and it felt too obvious. Michael Mann is more cool and slick in certain ways now. One specific key scene, Driver as Farrari is looking at the camera about winning through he is supposedly talking to his drivers after a failed race. Like some of Mann's earlier films, the scene comes off as iconic. The racing scenes, especially in the mountains, show Mann's visceral nature (especially one crash) that harks back to films like "Heat" or "Miami Vice". Inside the theater at the Ritz Carlton in Jeddah, the mix on the low end in these scene (Atmos I take it) was noticable and really brought you into the picture. "Ferrari" is not perfect but it is efficient, sound, cinematic and deeply character based (with textured and vivid turns by Driver and Cruz), making it better than most (and actually the best...especially among the older auteur offerings this season). A-

By Tim Wassberg