Why Car People (And Everyone) Should Skip The Ferrari Film Entirely

It’s a big-budget Hollywood movie about a legendary Italian brand that caters exclusively to the rich. It stars Adam Driver and features some fine automobiles of the 20th century. What’s that? You’re excited to go see House of Gucci! Oh, heavens, no. We’re going to see Ferrari! Yes, I know. I’m sad too.

You could be forgiven for thinking a movie named after the most storied car brand of all time would be, well… about cars. A car movie, even! But no. As an automotive enthusiast, and as a journalist, it’s my duty to warn you off this soporific mess of a film. I’m not kidding, I swore an oath and everything.

Spoilers below, I’m not holding back on this dumpster fire.

The story of Ferrari takes place in 1957. The movie gets going with a slow, plodding scene of Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) leaving the home of his second family. Don’t be mislead by the shots of clutch pedals and shifters, we’re not about to see some action. Instead, it’s all character establishment, showing Ferrari’s fractured relationship with his wife, Laura (Penelope Cruz). There’s telephone conversations about race drivers and a track record, and Laura pulls a gun, but we’re ten minutes in and the pacing is positively glacial.

We then see the Ferrari patriarch is on his way to visit the grave of his first son, Alfredo “Dino” Ferrari. This isn’t a spoiler, because the movie starts in 1957, after his death. We’re treated to seeing Driver and Cruz gurn and deform their faces in what comes across as a desperate lunge for an Oscar. Enzo monologues about his grief for his son and his friends lost on the racing circuit decades before. Laura attends the grave separately and stares silently past the camera for a full 34 seconds. That’s a realistic representation of a mother’s grief, sure, but it’s incredibly tedious on screen. Especially at just fifteen minutes into the film before we’ve even connected with these stale, hardnosed characters.

What you’ve seen already is, sadly, what the movie is almost entirely about. It’s not about cars and racing and victory and passion. It’s about a sad old Italian man with family problems. Yes, there’s a racing storyline in there, somewhere, but it’s really just a backdrop to Enzo trying to figure out how to have his cake (his mistress) and eat it too (Uh, respect his bastard son. It’s not a perfect metaphor).

The film chose to cover a very miserable period in Ferrari’s life, but also faked a bunch of things to make the movie more compelling. It tries to shoehorn in the battle for Ferrari’s future, where the Italian company courted Fiat and Ford as potential backers to save it from debt. But that didn’t happen until the 1960s, years after the film is set. You don’t have to stick to the exact historical record to make a good film; Ford v Ferrari showed that. The difference with that film is that it was actually entertaining.

Indeed, Enzo’s quest in the film was bequeathed upon him by an accountant. He’s told to win the 1957 Mille Miglia to buoy the company’s value and help attract outside finance. So, we get to see L’Ingegnere himself in the trenches with the team, right, developing and perfecting the race cars to claim victory over evil Maserati? Arguing about manifolds and valve springs and how to best tackle the complexities of the Mille Miglia course?

Uh, no. Why would you want that? Wouldn’t you prefer long, tedious scenes where Enzo gets told he should name his bastard son “Ferrari” and he just sits there quietly deferring any real decision? Because that’s what you’re getting!

Indeed, that’s the problem with the whole film. Enzo doesn’t really do anything! He wanders around a track, laments his dying marriage, and shuffles some papers around. He basically just floats from scene to scene looking sad while letting events swirl around him. He doesn’t work on cars, he doesn’t make any real resolutions with his wife or his mistress; he barely even negotiates for the future of his supposedly beloved company. Maybe that’s the point, maybe that’s what the director was going for. But I tell you what, it’s incredibly dull to watch.

The film has a couple of enjoyable moments. Enzo’s exhortations to his drivers to stick the boot in and not yield to the Maserati cars? That’s a nice moment. The drivers writing letters to their families before the 1957 Mille Miglia is also a good highlight of what motorsport was really like. The film even almost gets us to like a couple of characters; Alfonso de Portago as the star driver, Piero Lardi, Enzo’s illegitimate son.

It all culminates in the big race, with Ferrari deeply invested in claiming victory ahead of Maserati. There are some great action scenes in which the cars do battle on gorgeous Italian mountain roads. It feels a long time overdue given how little action we’ve seen in the first hour of the film. Even these are spoiled somewhat, though, seemingly by a commitment to historical accuracy. Both the Ferrari and Maserati cars wear near-identical shades of red and similar three-digit race numbers. The only way you can really tell them apart in motion is by the metal trident on the front of the Maserati cars.

Director Michael Mann does one thing of note, and it’s the tragic crash that would bring the Mille Miglia to an end after 1957. Nine spectators died, including five children, when de Portago’s Ferrari had a tire failure and speared into a telephone pole and into bystanders. de Portago himself died, having been severed in half in the crash, while his navigator Edmund Gunner Nelson also perished in the wreck. It’s portrayed clearly, viscerally, and in slow motion, showing the audience the very real trauma of what happened. If anything, it’s too much, but it’s an unignorable reminder of how brutal motorsport could be in those dangerous days. I won’t post it here, and you won’t see it in the trailer—it’s simply too gory.

The film wraps up shortly after, with enough dialogue to tell us that the company will be fine going forward. Despite de Portago’s death in the crash, Piero Taruffi brought home victory for Ferrari with all the glory that followed. Enzo’s wife gives him full control of the company and money to bribe the press to shut up about the accident. Her one condition is that he doesn’t give the Ferrari name to his illegitimate son before she passes away, just as in real life—his son was not named Piero Ferrari until after Laura’s death in 1978.

I might sound bitter, and I might be missing the point. But I think I can be forgiven for thinking Ferrari should actually have been a decent car film. Even then, I’m also not opposed to movies about messed-up Italian families screwing up and having arguments—I loved House of Gucci! Mostly because the characters in that film actually seemed to have an emotion beyond “-__-” and you know, actually did things and affected the outcomes of their own lives.

All in all, the film gets one star from me. Whether you’re a car fan, or just a normie that likes a good tale, don’t waste your time. Lewin out.

Image credits: Roadshow Films via YouTube screenshot