Set in the summer of 1957, with Enzo Ferrari’s auto empire in crisis, the ex-racer turned entrepreneur pushes himself and his drivers to the edge as they launch into the Mille Miglia, a treacherous 1,000-mile race across Italy.

It is late December which means amidst the various Christmas and kid themed releases, it is also the start of awards season, and by extension biopic season. One of those biopics is Michael Mann’s ‘Ferrari’, a movie about the founder of the world renowned Italian car brand, Enzo Ferrari, played in this movie by Adam Driver (giving his Italian accent another workout after ‘House of Gucci’). It focuses on one year in particular in 1957, an important year in the origin story of Ferrari that contributed to it becoming the iconic company that it is today.

At its heart, ‘Ferrari’ is a character study that explores the personal and professional life of Enzo Ferrari, attempting to get at what made him tick. He is a difficult man to warm to, with his focused, almost methodological approach to his work maintaining a distance between him and the audience. Driver is solid enough in his performance, but I felt he captured the drive if not the passion, which may have been intentional. He is living between two women (Penelope Cruz and Shailene Woodley), and Cruz in particular is good as a woman struggling to come to terms with the death of her son and essential loss of the man she loves. I must confess in the early parts of the movie I was concerned that ‘Ferrari’ was going to be almost unintentionally comedic with over the top Italian accents a la ‘House of Gucci’, but it steers clear of that – not to say that arguments over whether this would have worked better with an Italian cast are not valid.

Where the movie does excel is in the racing sequences and its recreation of 1950s classic racecars, and 1950s racing environments. You can almost smell the petrol through the screen and the primary sequence at the 1957 Mille Miglia race is utterly gripping – it’s well worth a trip down the Wikipedia rabbit hole to read more about that particular race. I thought some of the moments where Ferrari sets out his vision to his drivers were terrific, and in these moments you can see why people were drawn to drive for him, even as other parts of the film struggle to make the character as compelling as he could have been.

‘Ferrari’ is a throwback to a time when motor racing was much more dangerous, but I guess some would argue, more pure and authentic – it’s a good thing that time has passed but I enjoyed this exploration of the origins of that most famous of Italian racing brands and for anyone with even a passing interest in motor racing, ‘Ferrari’ is worth seeking out.

Rating: 4/5

Directed By: Michael Mann

Starring: Adam Driver, Penelope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Sarah Gadon, Gabriel Leone, Jack O’Connell and Patrick Dempsey

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3758542/