Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Ferrari’ on Hulu, Michael Mann’s Portrait of a Competitive and Conflicted Man

Eight years elapsed between Michael Mann’s Blackhat and 2023’s Ferrari (now streaming on Hulu, in addition to VOD services like Amazon Prime Video), which is far, far too long. The master filmmaker elevates the idea of an Oscar-bait biopic from Deep Sigh to Holy Shit with the mere mention of his name – and I hereby chant the titles Heat, Thief, The Last of the Mohicans and Collateral (and maybe even the underrated Blackhat) as incantation to invoke the goodwill of the film gods before we sit down to watch this story about the iconic Italian carmaker. Ferrari was long in the works for Mann, with pre-production dating back a couple decades and the lead role cycling through the hands of Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman before Adam Driver got behind the wheel, leading a stellar cast including Penelope Cruz, Shailene Woodley and Patrick Dempsey, and I hereby promise to not use any more car/driving metaphors in the rest of the review. So was it worth all the work and the long wait? Should we be mad about its inability to score even a single Oscar nomination? Or should we ask the more pertinent question here: Is Mann even capable of making a movie that’s not worth watching? 

FERRARI: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Enzo Ferrari (Driver) wakes up next to his most troublesome secret: Lina (Woodley). She’s been his mistress for so long, their son Piero (Giuseppe Festinese) is nearing his confirmation. Lina and Piero live in a remote locale, away from the scrutinous public eye that comes with Enzo’s fame and notoriety. In fact, it seems weird to call him “Enzo.” From here on out he is “Ferrari,” because the metaphorical explosiveness of the name and brand and reputation – then, now and always – very much reflects the human being. 

Anyway, Ferrari’s wife Laura (Cruz) knows he’s a philanderer, but she doesn’t know about the boy, and you get the feeling that if she ever learned the truth, it’d be a spark in a powder keg. She’s not at all happy about her husband’s screwing around, but she tolerates it, and at least asks that he keep up appearances so the matter remains as private as possible. The reason she stomps around their home in the dim lighting, simmering with scorn? They’re 50/50 business partners in Ferrari’s racing and auto-production endeavors. They’re also feeling the unenviable pain, at once uniting and divisive, of a couple who lost a child; their son Dino died of chronic illness, and they’ll never be able to overcome that grief. Again, imagine how she’d feel if she knew he had another son from another woman who’s much, much more than just a one-night stand. And her financial stability pretty much hinges on her tolerance of Ferrari’s sins – unless she can find a way to use the situation for her competitive advantage. More on that in a minute.

So Ferrari’s personal life is at a precarious inflection point. Business isn’t great either. The company’s in the red, as in hot cherry red, the color of you-know-what. Ferrari is considering pitching a partnership with Ford or Fiat so they can oversee the manufacturing of cars for private sale, and Ferrari can focus on racing. That’s his passion – he was a driver, enchanted by the great risks and rewards of the sport – and now his intense competitive spirit seems to have no outlet. The 1,000-mile Mille Miglia looms on the horizon, and Ferrari gathers drivers to compete. One is Piero Taruffi (Dempsey), a Formula One vet who rouses Ferrari’s ire when he says their competitor Maserati’s car is faster, and has an ashtray. Maybe he’ll race the Ferrari if it had a damn ashtray. Give the man an ashtray, I say, although it seems like driving at high speeds in the open air makes smoking rather difficult. Ferrari’s hip to this absurd notion, too. He barely tolerates it. He’s chilly as hell.  

How chilly is Ferrari, exactly? He watches as one of his hired wheelmen dies in a wreck on the test track, and he barely flinches. He knows death hovers nearby, always, and seems numb to it, although he visits Dino’s grave and feels the pain, and when he talks to his son, it’s like a therapy session. Now, winning the Mille Miglia would boost the Ferrari brand and aid in negotiating a financial partnership, but there’s a big hurdle to clear: He needs Laura to cooperate. She agrees – reluctantly. Of course she’s reluctant. In exchange, she wants a check for $500,000, which he gives to her on the promise that she hold it for now; if she cashes it before they win the race and secure the deal, it’ll bankrupt the company. She goes to the bank to get the paperwork and in the books are details about where some of the company’s money is going. And it’s not going towards gas or gears or payroll or any of that. You know where it’s going, and now all of Ferrari’s everything might be going straight to hell.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Ferrari dramatizes the dark days of Ferrari. Things were a bit rosier in 1966, when Ford v Ferrari was set, but not so good that Ferrari actually won that race.

Performance Worth Watching: Here’s the big Bone o’ Oscar Contention: Cruz is the boiling-blood heart of a movie that could use a little more, ahem, heat, and she absolutely carries more dramatic weight in Ferrari than some of the other supporting-actress nominees. The film’s final, and most important, scenes find her carrying the burden of resentment and loss, powerfully bringing the film’s emotional arcs into focus.

Memorable Dialogue: A prickly marital exchange: 

Ferrari: What do you want me to say? “Mr. Ford, we have a deal, but first we must wait while I ask my wife for permission?”

Laura: Yes, you can say that.

Sex and Skin: A couple brief moan-and-smooch sex scenes, one of which features bare boy buns.

Our Take: Ferrari is a tonally chilly, narratively muddled, exquisitely directed, visually sumptuous film. If only Troy Kennedy Martin’s screenplay was up to par with Mann’s direction; you’ll appreciate its tight focus on a highly dramatic time in Ferrari’s life, but lament its saggy midsection and lack of precision storytelling. Although he shows occasional moments of vulnerability, Driver is almost too steely in the central role, to the point where we struggle to sense the motivation and conflict within the character. And as with 2021’s House of Gucci, you’ll want to fire these Super Mario Italian accents into the nearest black hole; they’re inconsistent (see: Woodley) and distracting.

Not wholly unexpectedly, the art of Ferrari can be found in Mann’s ability to shift between elegant and visceral visual language, through the work of cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt (The Killer, Mank). Interior scenes are sumptuously lit, with close-ups resembling deep, rich Renaissance paintings (one shot of Cruz’s wide-eyed face in the darkness conveys such fiery vengefulness, it brought to mind Pazuzu’s pale visage in The Exorcist). The racing sequences summon goosebumps, Mann and editor Pietro Scalia cutting between overhead, POV and static shots as the big-cat roars and satisfying clicks of shifting gears emphasize the sights and sounds of omnipresent peril. Mann captures the speed, exhilaration and timing of a dangerous sport with rigorous detail, and in those moments, the film truly comes to life. 

One sequence bereft of auto action stands out: Ferrari attends an opera, and Mann cuts among the primary characters in the present and in flashback, underscoring the grand dramatic tragedy of this story. This is when the director’s skill and vision cut through the more troublesome performances and writing, and establish Ferrari as the work of a true master. And making Laura and Ferrari’s irreparably fractured relationship the film’s strongest throughline, and therefore making Cruz its primary emotional caretaker, was a wise choice. Oddly, the film’s climactic moment is undercut by the use of sub-par CGI, rendering the sequence unforgettable on two levels. Ferrari is such a mixed bag at times, reviewing it is to find oneself pretzeled by affection and, if not derision, then disappointment. It seems to be one of the rare instances when typically clueless Oscar voters actually got it right.

Our Call: Ferrari is often great, and slightly less often, it’s mediocre. So yes, it’s at least worth watching, and Mann completists will appreciate it more than most. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.