Here is a film showing us the great Enzo Ferrari who is, in the words of the song, always crashing in the same car. Screenwriter Troy Kennedy Martin and director Michael Mann give us Adam Driver as the harassed, greying, paunchy Enzo, the petrolhead hero turned owner of the legendary family business, grinding unsmilingly round and round the race-track circuit of his life in late 1950s Modena.
Enzo is increasingly outclassed by the upstarts at Maserati, looking for a win, looking for way out of bankruptcy, looking for way to placate his embittered wife Laura (Penelope Cruz) in whose name he has rashly put the business assets, looking for a way to acknowledge his mistress Lina (Shailene Woodley) who has borne him a son after his older boy, with Laura, tragically died. He is played with conviction and impassive stoicism by Driver, and the actor’s surname is actually inappropriate: Enzo’s days of sexily driving sleek race cars are behind him. He is an administrator these days, driving a dull bulbous little vehicle more suited to a bank manager.
