Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: Ferrari (2023)
An altogether infertile American studio film, Michael Mann’s Ferrari neglects the creativity and bravura in the racing that any good racing movie should have and substitutes stereotypical housewife and mistress roles for the film’s two women.
The Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PӦFF) runs in-person in Tallinn, Estonia, from November 3 to 19. Joshua Polanski will be reviewing for Midwest Film Journal live from Estonia as part of his multi-outlet coverage of the festival. Be sure to check out his website for updates on additional coverage.
An altogether infertile American studio film, Michael Mann’s Ferrari neglects the creativity and bravura in the racing that any good racing movie should have and substitutes stereotypical housewife and mistress roles for the film’s two women.
In other words, it’s a Hollywood movie.
Absent Marriage Story, Adam Driver gives the best performance of his career as Enzo Ferrari, founder of the Scuderia Ferrari Grand Prix motor racing team and the automobile line. He’s cold and almost crazed yet too much of a professional (and with too much backstory) to be the kind of monomaniac found in Werner Herzog’s early films. If you look past an absence of flip humor, Driver’s Ferrari has more in common with Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark than he does with Klaus Kinski’s Aguirre. One gets the sense Driver really enjoyed playing the character too, more so than some of his other recent big-budget features.
Continue reading at the Midwest Film Journal.