Ferrari

Imagine Ford vs Ferrari meets House of Gucci and you have your movie. Just add cars. Yet it’s shot very carefully, like a documentary. Charting the rise, demise and rise of Ferrari as a racing force to be reckoned with, the story sets the race to win against the painful break-up of Enzo and Laura Ferrari’s marriage and business partnership.

Loss dominates the screen — loss of cars and drivers, loss of the war, loss of children (Ferarri’s son Dino in the First World War), loss of love and trust (with his wife Laura) and loss of races. Even loss of self as Laura is no longer who she once was and her husband Enzo is seemingly lost to her too.

It’s 1957, Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) battles gentleman past-time drivers, media, unreliable vehicles, terrible publicity when an accident kills several watching villagers during the contest of the Mille Miglia, his drivers’ distracting partners and his wife, Laura (Penélope Cruz). When not battling all of these things, he also battles his own secrets — which everyone in Modena apart from his wife knows — he has a second family with a partner Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley) and a son Piero hidden in a countryside villa. Which he secretly funds - (again hidden from his wife).

As Laura manages the finances, it’s all about to blow up in his face when she accidentally finds out from the bank. Somehow, although she isn’t given much to do beyond snark, fester and scream exposition, Penélope Cruz creates substance in Laura, making us feel compassion for her. And literally feel her pain. A rejected wife, mourning a dead son and the dying of love, stuck with a snarky mother-in-law, the Ferraris remain together for the sake of the business and perhaps because there is nothing else. Only now there is — what will happen to them all? As major benefactors to the local society, what will happen to their reputations when the truth is revealed? And what will Enzo Ferrari sacrifice to win?

Although he’s given more to do, it’s hard to like or even understand Enzo Ferrari in this movie. We do see his softer side as he cares for his son Piero and loves Lina; but much of his time is spent staring in anguish out of windows as he tries to make yet another impossible decision. The Ferraris do have quite a weird strained public relationship — paying their respects separately to their dead son, attending church together and putting on a strange show of solidarity which everyone knows is a lie. Enzo is even prescriptively dividing his time between households. Some flashbacks to happier times, utilising beautiful opera music, help — but like the relationships, the characterisations are strained.

Sympathy is even extended to Lina when she says that she regrets their affair during the war and feels pity for breaking up a marriage. It’s just because it created a son that things are more complicated, and perhaps that’s why they’re together now.

The Ferraris feud, Enzo stares in anguish — a lot, Piero wonders who he really is and the Ferrari brand keeps trying to win the race as parts fall off the cars at an alarming rate. Like the cars, Mr and Mrs Ferrari start to come apart as a business partnership. Laura has some prescriptive requirements to secure her acquiescence with a change in the running of the business — and Enzo some sneaky double-crosses. It’s all very painful — but the cars look good.

Best watched when there’s a UK train crisis, as it’s comforting to see some vehicles moving as they should!