Adam Driver seemingly possesses a superpower that draws the world's greatest filmmakers into his orbit. The ubiquitous star now pairs with Heat filmmaker Michael Mann for the much-anticipated Ferrari biopic. Driver portrays the monolithic car designer Enzo Ferrari while Mann gets back in the saddle to make his first feature film in eight and a half years. Plenty of reasons to celebrate, then.
The film is based on Brock Yates’ biography Enzo Ferrari: The Man And The Machine. It dramatises an especially traumatic period in Ferrari's life when he and his wife Laura (played in the movie by Penelope Cruz) are mourning the tragic loss of their son Dino. With the Ferrari company seemingly in dire straits, an opportunity then arises: restore the company's honour by entering one of its cars in Italy's famed 1000-mile-long Mille Miglia race.
We're already feeling the scorching intensity of the movie from its first trailer. The versatile Driver doesn't do things by halves (hence a dramatic range spanning Star Wars to Marriage Story and beyond) while Mann is a notorious stickler for technical detail and realism. That shootout sequence in Heat? It was so convincingly staged that the SAS adopted its tactics as part of the official training program.
There's no dialogue in the trailer until the end, and Driver undergoes another of his transformative portrayals to depict the ailing, ageing Ferrari as he clutches at one final moment of glory. With a supporting performance from Shailene Woodley as Ferrari's daughter Lina, the movie is reputed to contain at least one shattering crash sequence that will knock viewers for six.
Tune up the trailer, drink in the fumes and bask in the musicality of those roaring engines. Ferrari gets a theatrical release in the UK this Boxing Day.
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