Venice Film Festival 2023 ‘Ferrari’ review round-up: Adam Driver portrays Enzo Ferrari in Michael Mann’s ‘heady, intricately dark, raptly absorbing’ film

Ray Richmond
·5 min read

The first reviews are in from Thursday night’s Venice Film Festival world premiere of the Michael Mann-directed major Oscar contender “Ferrari,” the action-packed Neon study of the Italian racer and sports car entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari starring Adam Driver as Ferrari, Penelope Cruz as his wife Laura and Shailene Woodley as his mistress Lina Lardi. It focuses on three pivotal months in the life of Ferrari back in 1957, casting its focus on that year’s grueling Mille Miglia endurance race and the love triangle between Enzo and his women. While the early critiques are mixed with some lukewarm ones, the majority are uniformly positive and include a few outright raves.

Here is a sampling:

More from GoldDerby

Owen Gleiberman of Variety raves, “In Michael Mann’s heady, intricately dark, raptly absorbing ‘Ferrari,’ it isn’t just the action that’s fraught with thrilling danger. Every moment of the drama moves with a sense of high-stakes dread, of underlying emotional turbulence…It has (a) cathartic honesty of what life is all about…Mann casually immerses us in the late-’50s period detail, from the elegant dowdy decor to the pre-media-culture press conferences that take place on the fly in parking lots. And he cues us, in every scene, to the welter of thoughts and feelings that are swimming around behind Ferrari’s cool mask of a face. That’s what makes the film so supple and compelling. Credit the ace acting of Driver, Cruz and Woodley, as well as Mann’s singular ability to interlock the film’s crises like hidden depth charges of drama.”

SEE‘Ferrari’ trailer: Adam Driver is in it to win in Michael Mann’s first film since 2015 [Watch]

Robbie Collin writes in The Guardian, “Once the stakes have been patiently set out, and the race that will allow Ferrari to save its reputation rolls around, it’s as if a nitrous injection has gone off under the film’s hood. The driving scenes are astonishing – as electrifying, wind-whippingly real as anything in the genre’s history, from ‘Le Mans’ to ‘Ford v Ferrari.’ Recent pretenders like ‘Need for Speed’ and ‘Gran Turismo,’ meanwhile, are left looking like the Fun Kart Grand Prix.”

Stephanie Zacharek of Time magazine writes, “‘Ferrari’ zings along with a sleek, greyhound energy – it’s a supple, elegant film, the kind of picture you’d expect from a vigorous craftsman like Mann, who hasn’t made a movie since the 2015 cybercrime thriller ‘Blackhat.’ The racing scenes, in particular, are thrilling, though they’re mitigated by a sense of horror…The movie’s most stunning sequence (is) so beautifully shot and edited it could serve as an action masterclass by itself.”

SEEMichael Mann’s ‘Ferrari’ set the close the 2023 New York Film Festival

Richard Lawson notes in Vanity Fair, “‘Ferrari’ is careful to make its people real: complex and capable of change. (It) may not be as vroom-vroom gung-ho as 2019’s “Ford v Ferrari,” but Mann’s film is all the more pleasurable for its thoughtfulness and restraint…Now 80 years old, Mann has made a film that’s more rueful and contemplative than those in his past. Ferrari the man – who was charged with manslaughter for an accident depicted in the film – is neither venerated nor condemned. But he is perhaps understood, as framed by an old master who himself knows a thing or two about building elegant, sophisticated machines.”

David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter says, “It’s mostly fast and furious, with a brain. It was a smart decision to forego any cradle-to-grave ambitions and focus instead on a concentrated period in which multiple factors weighed on the future of Ferrari. It gives the film high tension both on and off the track, and even if the emotionally charged domestic scenes seldom match and adrenaline rush of the hair-raising race sequences, they provide intimate access to a man whose brusque, all-business manner and flinty wit might otherwise have kept him at a distance…While all of this is engrossing, ‘Ferrari’ fundamentally is about the big race, where Mann’s virtuoso technique kicks in and cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt’s cameras put us at the wheel or in the path of the speeding roadsters to thrilling effect.”

SEEVenice Film Festival 2023 kicks off against backdrop of twin Hollywood strikes

And finally this from Ryan Lattanzio in IndieWire: “Ultimately, while ‘Ferrari’ indeed centers on the man of its title, that title also extends to the same-named dynasty that made Enzo’s empire possible, the people he touched, the women left strewn by his death drive. Driver’s performance is a fine one, flanked ever by emotional guardrails even in stressed-out moments like when Enzo eyes his stopwatch for his racing Ferraris’ latest speed times. But Cruz hijacks the wheel from her co-star in a grief-dazed but always alert and forceful turn, her face a stony wall that tells of great pain.”

“Ferrari” will close the New York Film Festival on October 13 before opening in theaters nationally on Christmas Day.

PREDICT the 2024 Oscar nominees through January 23

Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?

Best of GoldDerby

Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.