The roar of engines and strain of race cars careening around a sharp curve make for the panache of the New York Film Festival’s final picture, but the real drama of Ferrari takes place within walls. As Enzo Ferrari, a brooding charismatic silver-haired Adam Driver is haunted by loss—of father, brother, son, friends--, he speaks of creating walls so as not to feel the continuity of pain that is part of his present, Italy 1957, years into his marriage to Laura Ferrari, a dark, grieving Penelope Cruz, who is also his partner in Ferrari, the race car company they built. But when we first see him, after a prologue of black & white footage of his own fierce driving—what he calls “a deadly passion,” he’s in bed with Lina Lardi, a lighter Shailene Woodley, a mistress with few demands. Before sneaking off for home, he tucks in a boy, their son. Home, in Modena, is where Laura with her black piercing eyes, stays secluded within rooms of maddening deep tones and swirly wallpaper, and Enzo’s mother.
The actors, permitted to be present because the film is not attached to a studio in contention, were interviewed along with director Michael Mann following the packed screening at Alice Tully Hall. Troy Kennedy Martin wrote the script based on Brock Yates’ book, Enzo Ferrari: The Man, the Cars, embellished farther than Mann’s original concept collaborating with Sydney Pollack. Locations are key: In one scene, shot in the actual Ferrari mausoleum, Driver as Enzo cries over the dead.
Most eloquent about her preparation, Cruz spoke about that wallpaper, a window into Laura’s psyche. Mann introduced her to a doctor in Modena who showed her love letters between Enzo and Laura dating into the 1970’s, just before she died, his partner till the end. A principal investor, having sold her wedding gifts to create their first Ferrari, Laura is a formidable, surprising character, the movie’s pulse. While Enzo’s lovemaking with Lina is tender, he takes Laura on a dining room table, in a wild frenzy of shared grief over their dead son, mutual sacrifice in business, and lust for a lost world. Let’s just say, if you see a gun, it must go off. Cruz dedicated her performance to all invisible women behind powerful men everywhere.
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