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Ferrari (2023 film)

Ferrari is a 2023 American biographical sports drama film directed by Michael Mann and written by Troy Kennedy Martin. Based on the 1991 biography Enzo Ferrari: The Man, the Cars, the Races, the Machine by motorsport journalist Brock Yates, the film follows the personal and professional struggles of Enzo Ferrari, the Italian founder of the car manufacturer Ferrari, during the summer of 1957 as Scuderia Ferrari prepares to compete in the 1957 Mille Miglia. Adam Driver portrays the titular subject, and Penélope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Sarah Gadon, Gabriel Leone, Jack O'Connell, and Patrick Dempsey co-star.

Ferrari was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 80th Venice International Film Festival, premiering on August 31, 2023. The film was originally set to premiere on the streaming service Showtime, but it was eventually released in the United States theatrically on December 25, 2023, by Neon. Although the film received generally positive reviews from critics and was named one of the top 10 films of 2023 by the National Board of Review, it was a box-office bomb, grossing only $42 million against a $95 million budget.

Plot

In the summer of 1957, Italian entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari prepares his racing team for the Mille Miglia, an open road, endurance-based race lasting one thousand miles. Grappling with both domestic and professional crises, Ferrari and his estranged wife, Laura, grieve for their only son, Dino, who died a year prior.

While he has kept Laura from learning of his infidelities, Ferrari’s mistress, Lina Lardi, pressures him to grant their illegitimate son, Piero, the Ferrari name as his confirmation nears.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the groundbreaking development of the team's Formula One car, Ferrari’s manufacturing company is suffering from severe financial hemorrhaging. Faced with no other choice, Ferrari must merge with a sister company to continue doing business.

However, Laura owns half of Ferrari's shares, and in order to move forward on deals, Enzo must convince her to sign the entirety of the company over to him. A resentful Laura demands a check for $500,000, which will bankrupt the company if she cashes it.

Laura confirms her suspicions that Enzo has been having an affair after finding where Lina and Piero live in the countryside outside Modena. Enzo agrees to write the check and trusts her to wait.

As the Mille Miglia commences in Brescia, Ferrari encourages his drivers to remain ahead of the competition. During a pit-stop in Rome, Enzo’s newest addition to the team, Alfonso de Portago, refuses to change tires in order to stay in the lead; he suffers a blowout and loses control of the vehicle, which veers off the road, killing de Portago, his navigator, and nine onlookers in the resulting crash, including children.

Another of Ferrari's drivers, the veteran Taruffi, completes the round trip to Brescia and wins the race. Ferrari is blamed by the media for de Portago's lethal accident, and Laura cashes her check to provide bribe money for journalists.

Laura signs over the full rights to the company, requesting that in return, Enzo refrain from giving Piero the Ferrari name until after her death. Enzo agrees, and later brings Piero to his half-brother's grave.

Cast

Production

Development

Michael Mann first began exploring making the film around 2000, having discussed the project with Sydney Pollack. Mann had been developing the script with writer Troy Kennedy Martin, who died in 2009. Mann was offered $40 million to make the film, but he refused because he thought that the budget was not enough.

In August 2015, Christian Bale entered negotiations to star as Ferrari. Filming was planned to begin in summer 2016 in Italy. In October 2015, Paramount Pictures bought the worldwide distribution rights for the film. Bale exited the film in January 2016 over concerns of meeting the weight requirements for the role before the start of production. The project stalled until April 2017, when Hugh Jackman entered negotiations to portray Ferrari, and Noomi Rapace as his wife with Paramount no longer involved. The project would again go dormant until June 2020. Mann and Jackman were still attached but Rapace was no longer involved, with STX Entertainment handling international distribution.

In February 2022, Jackman had since left the film, with Adam Driver now starring as Ferrari. Penélope Cruz and Shailene Woodley also joined the cast. Driver was cast due to his performances in Logan Lucky and Marriage Story. Mann, Driver and Cruz reduced their salaries for the film.

STX Entertainment agreed to finance 70% of the budget and also acquire the North American distribution rights. The rest of the financing came from the Italian tax credit and private investors. In July, Gabriel Leone, Sarah Gadon, Jack O'Connell and Patrick Dempsey were added to the cast. Pre-production began in April 2022, with filming originally set to commence in July in Modena.

Filming

Principal photography began on August 17, 2022 in Modena. Filming occurred also in Brescia in early October. Production of the film wrapped in late October 2022.

Music

The film's score is composed by Daniel Pemberton. Milan Records released the soundtrack on December 25, 2023.

Release

Ferrari had its world premiere at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on August 31, 2023. Initially set for a U.S. theatrical release, the film's main financier STX Entertainment planned to premiere Ferrari on Showtime and Paramount+ in the United States instead of theatrically releasing it through their deal with Lionsgate, but eventually decided to license the United States distribution rights to another theatrical distributor. Neon paid $15–17 million for the United States distribution rights in a bidding war that also included A24, an unspecified streaming service and an unspecified film studio later scheduling for the film for a wide theatrical release in the United States on December 25, 2023. Neon also spent around $7 million to market the film in the United States.

Sky Cinema and Black Bear Pictures released the film in the United Kingdom theatrically on December 26, 2023. STX retained other international rights.

Home media

Ferrari was released on digital platforms in the United States on January 23, 2024, and on Blu-ray and DVD on March 12, 2024. The film will have its release in France through Amazon Prime Video.

Reception

Box office

As of March 7, 2024, Ferrari has grossed $18.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $24.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $43.5 million.

In the United States and Canada, Ferrari was released alongside The Boys in the Boat and The Color Purple, and was projected to gross around $1 million from 2,330 theaters on its first day. It ended up slightly exceeding expectations, grossing $2.9 million and finishing in sixth. The following weekend the film made $4.1 million, finishing ninth at the box office and totaling $10.9 million over its first week of release. In the film's second weekend it made $2.5 million, finishing ninth.

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 72% of 245 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "Sleek and well-acted, Ferrari overcomes its occasionally underpowered narrative to deliver a rousing and admirably complex biopic." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 72 out of 100, based on 55 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported 74% filmgoers gave it a positive score.

Marlow Stern of Rolling Stone praised Penélope Cruz's performance, writing: "There is an unstoppable force at the center of Michael Mann’s Ferrari. It is fast, fierce, and wildly unpredictable. One moment it has you in the throes of ecstasy; the next, fearing for your life. And when you see it coming around the bend, it's curtains. Don't even bother putting up a fight. You'll lose. I'm talking, of course, about Penélope Cruz."

Damon Wise of Deadline Hollywood was more critical of Adam Driver's performance, stating: "Given what's at stake [in the film], a strangely unemotional lead performance from Adam Driver makes it hard to warm to this odd and deeply self-absorbed character. Add in the glacial pace of its narrative, and a film expected to take an early awards-season lead will struggle to hold that pole position."

Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino criticized the film for casting American actors to portray Italian characters, instead of Italian actors. The Italian newspaper La Stampa found that it was a beautiful film but regretted that it only covered a limited part of Ferrari's life, while Piero Ferrari noted various elements in the film that did not, according to him, reflect accurately the facts.

Among mixed reviews, Kevin Nguyen of The Verge, wrote that he wanted "to credit Ferrari for being a weirder movie than you might expect for a biopic about a guy who builds iconic sports cars. But every swerve feels imprecise, and each detour just takes the film further in an unclear direction."