Review: The Life of the Artist is Complicated in ‘Ferrari’
Michael Mann’s long awaited biopic of the racing great seeks to humanise Enzo Ferrari
Whoever would have thought, having seen his breakthrough performance as Kylo Ren in Star Wars: The Force Awakens almost a decade ago, that Adam Driver would go on to cement himself, very consistently, as one of the boldest and best actors of his generation? Driver does not simply work with the best of auteur directors (such as: Leos Carax, Francis Ford Coppola, Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee, Michael Mann, Ridley Scott, Noah Baumbach, Martin Scorsese, the Coen brothers, Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg and Steven Soderbergh — a list containing a ridiculous abundance of cinematic talent), he also makes a point to constantly challenge himself.
Whether he is appearing as a Jesuit priest, an everyday bus driver/poet or as Don DeLillo’s professor of Hitler studies, it’s rare to see Driver work similarly between films. He is chameleonic and daring, consistently exciting to see.
In the case of Ferrari, Michael Mann’s long term passion project (the previous incarnation of which was morphed into James Mangold’s Ford Vs Ferrari, a likeable but very different film indeed) sees Adam Driver embody the legendary racer and car engineer/designer. Well suited to Mann’s…