Summer of 1957 paints a portrait of Enzo Ferrari, the designer, entrepreneur, and former racer whose life as a driving force behind a legendary brand is bursting at the seams. The Ferrari empire, founded with his wife Laura roughly two decades earlier, teeters on the edge of ruin. The death of his son Dino has fractured their marriage, now strained by promises spoken in half-trades and half-truths. A second family—Lina Lardi and his son Pierrot—grows harder to conceal, though it seems everyone but the wife understands the truth. The looming Mille Miglia, a thousand-mile endurance race staged on public roads, promises hope. A victory could lift sales and keep the company afloat, offering a lifeline amid catastrophe.
Two years after Ridley Scott’s The House of Gucci, Adam Driver returns in a high-stakes, family-centered drama that follows a powerful Italian brand’s head navigating a web of loyalties. The story is anchored by a marriage under strain rather than lethal feuds; the tension feels real enough to elicit a chill, though the spectacle remains centered on speed, family, and reputation. The film invites comparisons to another celebrated collaboration, suggesting a familiar pattern: a sweeping, kinetic first act paired with a longer, sprawling biopic that seeks to balance admiration with critique. Subtitled dialogue and the occasional Italian accent add flavor, though the impact can swing with how subtitles land for different audiences.
On screen, the Ferrari is shown moving with purpose, even when the human drama behind the scenes appears unsettled. The car sequences, when they arrive, unleash a kinetic intensity that anchors the film’s momentum. Eric Messerschmidt’s cinematography is a steady force, delivering adrenaline-filled chases and luminous frames that match the era’s aesthetic, aligning with the director’s knack for composing scenes that feel both precise and cinematic. While the narrative sometimes meanders through dialogue, the high-speed moments never lose their edge. The film’s energy cues linger, hinting at a world where performance and physics collide in a perpetual race against time. When the action quiets, the camera lingers on faces that reveal more than words could say, and the audience catches glimpses of the cost of greatness.
The project, a long-gestating vision from Michael Mann, carries a history of collaboration and evolution. Mann’s involvement spans decades, and the picture carries a lineage of adaptations and revisions that reflect a life spent shaping biographies. The shared effort includes contributions from key collaborators and screenwriters who worked to capture the era’s texture. The result sits within a tradition of biographical cinema that asks whether a figure’s legacy can be measured by triumphs or by the human costs paid along the road to fame. The film’s background music and production choices reinforce a sense of period authenticity while avoiding an overly glossy gloss that could obscure the truth beneath the legend.
Character dynamics center on the central leader’s authority and the strains it creates. The helmsman explains his philosophy with quiet authority, and his relationships with the women in his life, as well as with his children, reveal a man who is both capable and flawed. The narrative uses a minimalist framework—two partners, two sons, life and death, greatness, and humanity—to frame a saga about a family that rises and stumbles under the pressure of public adoration and private turmoil. The film posits that winners can carry heavy losses and that victory and defeat can arrive on the same side of a single decision.
One of the most chilling moments comes late in the story, when a choice about family and memory becomes a turning point. The cemetery as a site of initiation for Pierrot, who adopts the Ferrari surname, asks a provocative question: is the triumph of a name more significant than personal happiness? The conclusion invites viewers to weigh the value of wealth against the cost of absence or betrayal, a theme that lingers as the screen fades. In a life defined by extraordinary wealth, the ultimate question remains whether such fortune can ever fully hide the truth behind the story’s human core. The character’s wealth of influence, estimated in billions, is placed in tension with the enduring questions about legacy and belonging.