- Fast review -
I was not impressed with Ferrari 2023. Everyone’s fake Italian accents in English were distracting and difficult to understand. Race scenes were shot poorly and looked slow or fake. Several dramatic moments didn’t connect properly including the crash scenes (gore warning there). Problems presented and solved easily. Family melodrama that doesn’t really deliver there either. Some of the dialogue was atrocious. Don’t bother unless you’re a big fan of the actors. Sets, cars and outfits looked good thou. 3/10
– some spoilers in further discussion — but this happened 65 years ago
It’s a small slice out of Enzo Ferrari’s life — (supposedly) — before a big race. Yes, the founder of the car brand Ferrari. But this is back in 1957. The focus is split between his marriage, his girlfriend, his business and the racing. None is really developed and Enzo is hopping from scene to scene ticking things off. Problems are presented and immediately solved: he loses a racing driver — there is another one standing right next to him. He is getting bad press — he is presented with cash to bribe everyone. His racing drivers are too timid — tell them to be more aggressive. He doesn’t know what to do — someone tells him what to do. Over and over like that.
Perhaps it’s hard to condense real life into less than 2 hours.
This feels like a movie where someone on the production team was overly impressed with Adam Driver’s ~transformation~ into Enzo Ferrari and expected that to carry the entire movie. But since acting is his whole job that’s expected — I need the rest of the movie to hold up. He does fine — with some of his lines being very, very clunky. Except the character motivations get a little muddled: he states explicitly he has a business in order to fund his passion for racing. But the stated goal of winning the race is to sell more cars, to save the business. Wait.. but didn’t he want to win the races already? The dynastic elements don’t help — having an ‘heir’ to the company. Nor does his “wall” around the dangerous nature of racing back then (it’s still dangerous, just less so)
Of course real people are complex — but as the movie progresses he seems less like a racer, and just a business man.
A particularly awful scene has him supposedly designing a more efficient engine and teaching his illegitimate son. We are told he is drawing a ‘smoother curve’ but I saw him tracing over the line that was already there! Isn’t this the basics?! Am I going blind!? That’s the same line!
Accents
It’s this weird half-way house where they don’t commit to doing it in Italian (with Italian actors?) nor do they just do it in substituted, native English. I’m not quite sure what the rationale for this choice is. As others have pointed out before: in Italian, Italians sound native, fluent and beautiful. Not like this. Not like it’s a partially-mastered second language. And it’s difficult to understand even for a native speaker. Although I suppose non-English viewers will benefit from subtitles here.
Underwhelming racing
The cars often look slow. Cars back then were definitely LOUD and you certainly get a lot of that engine noise here, but coupled with the absurd shakey-cam it seems like an effort to cover that the cars aren’t actually going very fast, rather than something authentic.
Unrecognisable Icons
I’m already in my 30s now — and in my lifetime, Ferrari have never had a car that looked like they do in this movie. So that makes it difficult for someone like me to connect this Ferrari of 66 years ago with the modern Ferrari that I’m familiar with. The one that I adored when I was younger, could name the models by sight, and would race in video games. Sadly I still cannot afford one. Aside from the familiar red paint, it really was a different era.
The obvious lack of safety features — seat-belts for starters? — seems like an accident waiting to happen and oh … it happens. There are several crash scenes in this movie. They’re gory — maybe even unnecessarily so. And yet… the VFX falters and the director fails to support it. They look fake. Moments that should be critical to the drama and to character instead throw off my suspension of disbelief.
There is a long, slow pan over the aftermath of a very bad crash and it felt like “LOOK AT THIS SPECIAL EFFECTS WORK”. Ew, no thanks. WTF?
I think fans of this era of motor-racing would be happy with the presentation of accurate -looking cars, but they’ll be let down by the lackluster racing itself.
So who is it really for? I guess if you like melodrama this may offer a little to you. Not much and not great. There are some big shouty scenes from Penelope Cruz near the beginning that do grab attention. Which implies we’ll get much more drama than we end up actually getting later. Story wise, it doesn’t seem like there is much love there and she seems more like a secretary than the partner she is stated to be — constantly taking his phone calls. The sex scene seems odd given how their relationship is presented. The tiniest of flashback is supposed to fill us with the emotion of their history together — didn’t work for me.
Some awful dialogue. In a scene with Enzo’s 2nd woman I could see the dialogue written on the page in front of my eyes as the actress read the lines. That was a surreal experience — the first time that has ever happened to me. Have I watched too many movies this year? It’s that kind of dialogue that is neither natural nor fantasy fun. Just written lines. I have already forgotten what she was talking about. Yet the feeling remains.
Can I mention budgets again? Supposedly this cost $90–110 million. Yet The Creator (2023) cost a similar amount and was immaculate (even if I wanted it to be better). Godzilla Minus One (2023) and Sisu (2023) had 1/5 or 1/10th of the budget and delivered better movies.
Cars, locations and sets, makeup, sets and hair all looked great though. I didn’t recognise Adam Driver at first in the trailer. Well done. Let’s give credit where it’s due. I still struggle with the idea that we’re at the apogee of skill in those departments but others are consistently lacking. I hope they got paid well.
Adam Driver’s and Penelope Cruz’s fans will no doubt enjoy seeing them again. Fans of Enzo Ferrari’s work will be disappointed in the minute slice of his life and split focus. Fans of modern Ferrari may struggle to connect with this era. Fans of racing or action movies — no. It’ll be something to watch on TV one bored night for some I am sure. Cinema? No.
Perhaps I’m too harsh? It’s got a much better aggregrate score. At the same time, the box office is indicating other people are not recommending it to their friends. Maybe I’m right.
3/10 I think. Below average.
-R ☺
