Starring: Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Sarah Gadon, Gabriel Leone, Jack O’Connell, Patrick Dempsey
OUR RATING: ★★★☆☆
Story:
Bio-drama directed by Michael Mann. Set in the summer of 1957, Ferrari (2023) follows behind the spectacle of Formula 1, ex-racer Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver), who is in crisis. Bankruptcy threatens the factory he and his wife, Laura (Penélope Cruz), built from nothing ten years earlier. Their volatile marriage has been battered by the loss of their son, Dino, a year earlier. Ferrari struggles to acknowledge his son Piero with Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley). Meanwhile, his drivers passion to win pushes them to the edge as they launch into the treacherous thousand mile race across Italy, the Mille Miglia.
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Best Quotes
Laura Ferrari: [to Enzo] So many phone calls, I thought Frank Sinatra came to town. What do I tell them? “Excuse me, please. My husband isn’t here. He’s out wh**ing. Gratzi. Buongiorno.”
Laura Ferrari: Enzo, I don’t give a f*** who you screw or how many. But the rule is that you have to be here before the maid arrives with the morning coffee. That was the agreement, was it not?
Adalgisa Ferrari: [referring to Laura] I knew it would come to this. You gave her a gun, she’ll use it.
Enzo Ferrari: She carries the payroll for the factory around in that handbag.
Adalgisa Ferrari: I’d rearm Germany before I gave that woman a gun.
Enzo Ferrari: Well, from my mistakes I learn, whereas the mistakes you make you repeat, week after week. When you play Bologna, I hope you win. Otherwise I have to relocate the factory so the drivers are not dispirited by living in a city whose football team dwells in the perpetual twilight of failure.
Enzo Ferrari: [speaking to Dino at his grave] I’m hearing voices in my sleep again. My brother. And my father. No, I see their faces too. But also now, Campari and Borzacchini, my two good friends who died on the same day, twenty-four years ago this week at Monza, on that evil afternoon. Ghosts. There was a time I loved your mother, beyond reason. Well, she was a different creature then. But so was I. And I see you too, you know. Every moment I close my eyes. Your face I want to see.
Adalgisa Ferrari: Did I tell you of my son Alfredo, Enzo’s older brother?
Peppino: Many times, signora.
Adalgisa Ferrari: A tragedy. I lost him in the Great War.
Peppino: Yes, signora.
Adalgisa Ferrari: Let me tell you, the wrong son died.
Adalgisa Ferrari: [to Enzo] If you continue killing the nation’s heroes, we’ll have to go to America and live among foreigners.
'When a mother interferes in this business, death usually follows.' - Enzo Ferrari Share on X
Giacomo Cuoghi: You’re going broke. Laura’s right.
Enzo Ferrari: How?
Giacomo Cuoghi: How? You spend more than you make, that’s how.
Giacomo Cuoghi: Find a partner.
Enzo Ferrari: I have a partner. My wife. She is very mean with money.
Giacomo Cuoghi: A real partner. Like Agnelli at Fiat, or Henry Ford. Someone who has capital to pump in.
Enzo Ferrari: No. Impossible. With money, they want control. I must have total control.
Giacomo Cuoghi: You win on Sunday, you sell on Monday. You already have kings waiting in line.
Enzo Ferrari: Jaguar. Jaguar races only to sell cars. I sell cars only to be racing. We are completely different organisms.
Giacomo Cuoghi: Survive, or you are no organism.
Giacomo Cuoghi: Win the Mille Miglia, Enzo. Attract outside finance. Or you are out of business.
Giacomo Cuoghi: [to Enzo, referring to the Mille Miglia] Everyone’s eye will be on it. Only one team will win. Make sure it’s you.
Enzo Ferrari: Actresses. I have admiration, but keep them away from the paddock. They distract photographers, whose attention I want on my cars.
Lina Lardi: He asked me yesterday.
Enzo Ferrari: What?
Lina Lardi: “Am I Piero Lardi or Piero Ferrari?”
'In all life, when a thing works better, usually it is more beautiful to the eye.' - Enzo Ferrari Share on X
Enzo Ferrari: While with me, what do the English say? A piece of pie?
Lina Lardi: Cake, Enzo. And you’re not.
Laura Ferrari: [referring to Mille Miglia] A thousand miles across bad roads with sheep and dogs. Anything can happen.
Enzo Ferrari: You should assign me control of your stock, and the company, and the freehold, so I can deal.
Laura Ferrari: Oh. Because Henry Ford won’t deal with a woman.
Enzo Ferrari: No. Because if it comes to a deal, it will be hard and fast. I have to have all the cards in my hand.
Laura Ferrari: Well, half the cards are in my hand.
Enzo Ferrari: Laura, what do you want me to say? “Mr. Ford, we have a deal. But first, I must wait until I ask my wife for permission?”
Laura Ferrari: Yes. You can say that.
Laura Ferrari: You know what? I’m going to give you power of attorney over my stock so you can deal. For half a million dollars.
Enzo Ferrari: I don’t have half a million!
Laura Ferrari: You will if you make a deal!
Enzo Ferrari: [referring to the Ferrari] So what do you think?
Piero Taruffi: There is no ashtray.
Enzo Ferrari: Are you a prima donna?
Piero Taruffi: Have you ever tried flicking ash out of a car at two hundred kilometers an hour?
Enzo Ferrari: I’m offering you a brand new car which has the edge on Maserati.
Piero Taruffi: Bulls**t. The Maserati is faster. And it has an ashtray.
Enzo Ferrari: If I put in an ashtray, will you drive it in the Mille Miglia?
Enzo Ferrari: [to Taruffi] I’m not seduced by you, silver fox.
Enzo Ferrari: [to the reporters] When we win, I can’t see my cars for shots of starlets a**es. When we lose, you’re a lynch mob. It’s enough to make the pope weep.
Lina Lardi: [referring to Piero being his son] Enzo, this is Italy. Yes? All of Modena knows!
Enzo Ferrari: Except Laura. And that must stay as it is. Especially for now. Oh, you’re going to tell me, “Enzo, don’t be so bourgeois, so Italian.”
Lina Lardi: [to Enzo, referring to Laura] If I was a woman like I am now, not twelve years ago, I would not have interfered in another woman’s marriage. And now she’s lost a child. But the present is what the present is.
'If you get into one of my cars, and no one is forcing you to take that seat, you get in to win.' -Enzo Ferrari Share on X
Enzo Ferrari: [to his drivers] You lack commitment. Look at the Maserati team. Fangio. Behra. Stirling Moss. Hard-nosed pros. Men with a brutal determination to win. With a cruel emptiness in their stomachs. Detachment. Loyal to one thing, not the team. Loyal to their lust to win. It rains. The track is slippery with oil, an evil-handling car. Will they falter? No.
Enzo Ferrari: [to his drivers] On the straight into the tight corner at Nouveau Monde, there’s only one line through it. Behra pulls up next to you, challenging. You’re even. But two objects cannot occupy the same point in space at the same moment in time. Behra doesn’t lift. The corner races at you. You have perhaps a crisis of identity. “Am I a sportsman or a competitor? How will the French think of me if I run Behra into a tree?” You lift, he passes. He won. You lose! Because at that same moment Behra thought, “F*** it, we both die.”
Enzo Ferrari: [to his drivers] Make no mistake. All of us are racers, or have been. We all are certain, “It will never happen to me.” Then my friend is killed. I give up racing forever on Monday. I’m back racing by Sunday. We all know it’s our deadly passion. Our terrible joy. But if you get into one of my cars, and no one is forcing you to take that seat, you get in to win. Brake later. Steal their line. Make them make the mistake.
Enzo Ferrari: [referring to the car] The driver in front will pi** his pants when he sees it in his mirror. And when it passes, it has an a** on it like a Canova sculpture.
Sergio Scaglietti: You see that pigeon up there? I left its door open, but it won’t come out. It’s forgotten what freedom is.
Enzo Ferrari: Freedom for that pigeon is pigeon pie.
Sergio Scaglietti: There are a lot of people on your payroll with families. Ferrari needs continuity to stay Ferrari.
Enzo Ferrari: [referring to him and Laura] We have history. Stay there, pigeon, or you’re dead meat.
Laura Ferrari: [referring to Piero being his son] The whole of Emilia knows, but not me?
Enzo Ferrari: I thought it would break your heart.
Laura Ferrari: You broke my heart years ago, Enzo.
Laura Ferrari: [referring to Lina] Is she different from the others?
Enzo Ferrari: I was in love with her. And I still am.
Laura Ferrari: [to Enzo] I find myself sharing my whole life with a woman I have never met. It makes a mockery of you in the years when our son was ill. When he was dying.
Laura Ferrari: [referring to Dino] You were supposed to save him!
Enzo Ferrari: You blame me for his death?
Laura Ferrari: Yes! Yes! Because you promised me he wouldn’t die!
Laura Ferrari: Yes, I blame you. I blame you. Because you let him die.
Enzo Ferrari: The father deluded himself! The great engineer. “I will restore my son to health.” Swiss doctors. Italian doctors. bulls**t! I could not. I did not!
Enzo Ferrari: He got sick. Dystrophy. Kidneys! It destroyed him! It destroyed us.
Laura Ferrari: What do you care? Huh? You have another son! You have another wife!
Enzo Ferrari: She’s not my wife. But he is my son.
Enzo Ferrari: [to Laura, refering to the check] We are partners. This is a gun pointed at our head. You cash it before I conclude the deal, Ferrari is no more.
Enzo Ferrari: Refueling. Remind the mechanics the gas is to go into the tanks, not on the drivers. Especially Taruffi. I prefer he not go up in flames.
Peter Collins: [his letter to his wife before the race] My darling Louise. The same letter I write before every race. I have no worry for myself in this race, as ever. My only fear is that you will need me and I won’t be here. In that unlikely eventuality, know you have all my love always.
Gianni Agnelli: Ferrari cannot go to foreigners. You are a national treasure.
Enzo Ferrari: A “jewel in the crown of Italy.”
Gianni Agnelli: Exactly.
Enzo Ferrari: Then why does the jewel have to scrimp to put its cars into every race?
Gianni Agnelli: If it’s that bad, why didn’t you call me?
Enzo Ferrari: I did. You said no.
Gianni Agnelli: In business, each day is a new day.
Peter Collins: Who’s behind me?
Enzo Ferrari: Everyone. You’re in the lead.
Piero Taruffi: I think I can make it.
Enzo Ferrari: You better, you geriatric. If you don’t finish in the first three, your wife will never speak to you again. Nor your children.
Enzo Ferrari: [referring to Behra] He brakes, you pass. You brake, he passes. Or no one brakes.
Laura Ferrari: You knew about her and you never told me?
Adalgisa Ferrari: He is entitled to an heir.
Laura Ferrari: I gave him one.
Adalgisa Ferrari: As it turns out, one was not enough.
Enzo Ferrari: [to Taruffi, after Alfonso’s crash kills him, his navigator, and nine onlookers] Well, what happened is separate from your victory today. It will go into the history books.
Sergio Scaglietti: We all know death is nearby.
Enzo Ferrari: No, no, no, no. No, children don’t know. Families don’t know.
Enzo Ferrari: [to the reporters] If Italy is looking for a scapegoat, then here I am!
Laura Ferrari: [to Enzo] The press is competing for who can vilify you the most.
Laura Ferrari: This is God’s way of punishing us.
Enzo Ferrari: Us? You think he slaughtered nine people at Guidizzolo to get even with you and me?
Laura Ferrari: [to Enzo] What good are you doing yourself? “I’m a scapegoat. I’m a martyr.” Who are you? Who have you become? St. Sebastian? You stand there and let them shoot arrows in your a**? Go beat the hell out of them. The writers. Those cheap hacks. Threaten them. Extort them. And those still on their feet, the most sanctimonious and hypocritical, those, you give them brown envelopes. And then they also will discover that, “Perhaps the Sage of Maranello has been maligned unfairly. Perhaps moderation should reassert itself in the distinguished Italian press.” And for that, you need the cash.
Laura Ferrari: There was a part of you in Dino. Your warmth. Your wit. Your joy. He had that. I had that from you in our early years. But after a time, I only got what was left when you came home from the fights in the factory. The ambition, the drive, the plots. The paranoia. Even our f***ing. As if that could save Dino. What I loved in you I also found in him. All that’s gone. There is no condition. You have the money. But it is my wish, for my grief for our son, for the years building this, you do not acknowledge the boy with the name Ferrari while I am alive.
Enzo Ferrari: [as he takes Piero to see Dino’s grave] I’ll introduce you to your brother Dino. I wish you could have known him. He would have taken you with him everywhere.