There’s nothing rotten about these numbers. Director Michael Mann’s biopicFerrariis fresh off of its rousing, standing ovation (video below) at the 80th Venice International Film Festival. The film stars Adam Driver in the lead role of Enzo Ferrari with Patrick Dempsey, Penélope Cruz and Shailene Woodley co-starring. At the time of this writing, critics are giving Ferrari a Tomatometer rating of 83% against 29 reviews. Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair wrote:
“It’s been a long wait to see another of Mann’s muscular visions on the big screen, and while Ferrari is perhaps more muted than some might hope for, it’s a pleasure to watch the filmmaker explore some new styles and timbres.”
Marlow Stern of Rolling Stone added:
“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… I’m talking, of course, about Penélope Cruz.”
Adam Driverwas visibly moved to tears by those in attendance at the Venice Film Festival who gave him and the wholeFerrariteam that well-deserved, standing ovation. As a part of the interim agreements allowing exceptions be made to Indie films, and despite the ongoing Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strike, Driver proudly represented director Michael Mann’s picture in Venice.
Related:Ferrari: Plot, Cast, Release Date and Everything Else We Know
Ferrari Receives Standing Ovation in Venice
Director Michael Mann’sFerrarimade its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. Adam Driver and Patrick Dempsey joined Mann on the red carpet in Italy thanks to the SAG-AFTRA interim agreement, which allowed the actors to appear at the film fest to participate in and promote the screening. And early reactions to the biopic are mostly positive, at the time of this writing. Stephanie Zacharek of Time Magazine wrote:
“It’s a supple, elegant film, the kind of picture you’d expect from a vigorous craftsman like Mann, who hasn’t made a movie since the 2015 cybercrime thriller Black Hat.”
David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter wrote:
“Ferrari is unlikely to go down as canonical Mann, lacking the glimmering, hard-edged stylishness of his best work. But admirers of the director’s high-intensity, muscular filmmaking will not go unrewarded.”
Owen Gleiberman of Variety said:
“Ferrari really is like a ’70s movie. It has that intensity of grip, that layered human fascination, that cathartic honesty about what life is really about.”
WhileFerrariis receiving mostly positive reviews, at this time, there are those who weren’t as impressed by the biopics’ big-screen efforts. Nicholas Barber of BBC.com wrote:
“The racing sequences have enough energy and jeopardy to raise the pulse rate, but the rest of Ferrari… well, surely a film about high-speed cars shouldn’t pootle along as slowly as this one does.”
Kevin Maher of The Time (United Kingdom newspaper) also took issue with Mann’s new movie. Maher wrote:
“Adam Driver is back in Italian biopic mode… to play Enzo Ferrari in this handsomely made, competently performed but ultimately quite empty drama from the veteran film-maker Michael Mann (Heat).”
Ferrari’ssynopsis reads (viaNEON):
Ferrari is set during the summer of 1957. Behind the spectacle and danger of 1950’s Formula 1, ex-racer, Enzo Ferrari, is in crisis. Bankruptcy stalks the company he and his wife, Laura, built from nothing ten years earlier. Their tempestuous marriage struggles with the mourning for their one son. Ferrari struggles with the acknowledgement of another. His drivers’ lust to win pushes them out to the edge. He wagers all in a roll of the dice on one race, the treacherous 1,000-mile race across Italy, the iconic Mille Miglia.
Should the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes wage on into the fall, the interim agreement will also allow the cast members ofFerrarito show up for the film’s screening at the 61st New York Film Festival, which runs from September 29 until October 15.
This will mark Ferrari’s North American premiere, and the biopic is currently scheduled for two show times as a part of the festival’s closing night. Ferrari will play at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. EDT on Friday, October 13. Mann’s movie opens everywhere on Christmas Day, and fans can check out the teaser trailer below:
