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Adam Driver revs up powerful portrayal of revered car maker in Ferrari

The idea of the problematic male genius is one that has historically been over-represented in film history, including in 2023 with examples both good and bad. Michael Mann’s new film, Ferrari, attempts to give the renowned car maker Enzo Ferrari the same treatment, with the advantage that the Italian may not be as well-known outside of lending his name to luxury automobiles.

The film starts in 1957, with Enzo (Adam Driver), an ex-race car driver, 10 years into a venture that is on the verge of complete failure. His racers have not performed as well as expected, and the fact that the company purposefully sells so few “production” cars to the public – only 98 the previous year – has put extra pressure on the racing side of the company to succeed.

Enzo is also estranged from his wife, Laura (Penélope Cruz), who owns half the company. Any business decisions he has to run by her are complicated by his longtime affair with Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley), with whom he has a son. He must juggle his personal life with his professional one, with a race known as the Mille Miglia – a 1,000-mile race around Italy – perhaps a solution to everything that ails him.

Directed by Mann from a script by Troy Kennedy Martin, the film goes back-and-forth between Enzo’s two worlds, with their intertwining nature demonstrating how much pressure he has on him at almost all times.

The film is at its best when it delves into his relationships. Laura has a barely controlled fury that’s colored not just by Enzo’s infidelity, but also his strong-arm business tactics and a residual grief from the recent death of their son, Alfredo. Lina has a growing dissatisfaction at being “the other woman” and because Enzo, despite being a loving father in private, is unable to publicly acknowledge their son.

The business side is complex, with Enzo considering a deal to sell the business to Ford should their fortunes not improve. He is very exacting with his driving team, which includes Alfonso De Portago (Gabriel Leone) and Piero Tarufi (Patrick Dempsey), and also with the way the company is covered by the press. The details get relatively murky in the middle part of the film, with Mann not always able to tell that part of the story well.

The film does have some solid racing scenes, with their kinetic nature making up for the fact that it’s next to impossible to tell who’s winning and who’s losing at any one point, especially in the Mille Miglia. The fast driving and scenic locations are good distractions from this lack, though, and one particularly shocking crash sequence highlights the danger of the sport in an intense way.

Driver, as he always does, goes all-in with his character, affecting an Italian – but not “too” Italian – accent and either wearing a body suit or putting on weight to look hefty in the role. His scenes with Cruz are the best in the film, as the Oscar nominees know exactly how to modulate their performances. Woodley feels a bit out of place; her style of acting worked much better in this year's Dumb Money.

Ferrari does not match the depth of other Oscar hopeful movies in 2023, but with a couple of great performances and a story that gives a full impression of a creative genius instead of merely venerating him, it makes for a worthwhile watch.

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Ferrari opens in theaters on Christmas Day.

Photo courtesy of Neon

Adam Driver in Ferrari.

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Movie Review

Cheesiness undermines Whalefall's intense survival story

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Austin Abrams in Whalefall.

Austin Abrams has been a professional actor for 15 years, but the 30-year-old seems to just now be getting his due. After years of mostly supporting roles in films like Paper Towns, Brad’s Status, and Weapons, he has been charged with leading two films in 2026 where he’s largely acting by himself: First Resident Evil and now Whalefall.

Abrams plays Jay Gardiner, who has returned home to California a year after the death of his hard-ass father, Mitt (Josh Brolin). The two had a tempestuous relationship, and while his mom (Elisabeth Shue) and sisters (Jane Levy and Emily Rudd) reminisce fondly about him, Jay finds it difficult to come up with good memories. The two did share a connection with the ocean, and Jay decides to honor him by going scuba diving.

Ignoring warnings of whale activity in the area, Jay makes his way out into a notoriously dangerous part of the ocean near their home. Soon after he starts swimming, he encounters a sperm whale chasing after a giant squid. Jay inadvertently gets sucked into the enormous creature’s mouth and, ultimately, inside its body. Faced with a seemingly inescapable situation, Jay’s only hope lies in the lessons his father taught him.

Directed by Brian Duffield and adapted by Duffield and Daniel Kraus from Kraus’ book of the same name, the film is at its best when it depicts Jay struggling to survive within the whale. The claustrophobic nature of the setting and the various obstacles (multiple contracting chambers, the squid, and more) he faces make every scene inside the whale feel as intense and cover-your-eyes scary as any great horror movie.

Naturally, the entire movie can’t be about his survival efforts, and so the filmmakers toggle back and forth between Jay’s ordeal in the whale to memories of times with his father. Not so coincidentally, these remembrances come with subtle or overt wisdom from Mitt that would serve Jay well in his current situation. More often than not, these flashback scenes are so on-the-nose that they come off as cheesy instead of inspirational.

It’s also difficult to derive any big emotions from the story other than revulsion at the way Jay’s body is brutalized while he’s inside the whale. None of the characters in the film receive a notable introduction to the audience before big events start happening. It’s next-to-impossible to be invested in their stories when their personalities are being revealed in bits and pieces throughout the movie.

Abrams does well enough in bringing out the terror Jay feels in the whale and the sullenness/anger he has toward his father in other scenes. But whether it’s because his lines in the whale are hard to understand (he’s often talking around a scuba mouthpiece) or the disconnect the character has with father, there’s just something missing in his performance. Brolin’s performance is one-note, and Shue, Levy, Rudd, and John Ortiz don’t appear enough to make a big impact.

With Kraus onboard as the co-writer of the film, it may be the case that Duffield was not given leeway to change the story of Whalefall too much. What might have worked in the book doesn’t seem to translate equally to the film, and while Jay’s nightmare in the whale is effective, the rest of his story doesn’t come across as successfully.

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Whalefall is now playing in theaters.

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