Enzo Ferrari liked women. That’s a fact.
Ask Gerhard Berger when he was happiest in his career as a racing driver and he’ll talk about 1987, his first year at Ferrari, when the car was quick and after a race the Old Man would take him to lunch at the Cavallino, across the road from the factory, and ask him about the girls he’d had that weekend. When Enzo died the following year, aged 90, joining his father, mother, wife and first son in the family tomb, he left two mistresses along with a second son.
Perhaps the best thing about Michael Mann’s Ferrari, particularly for those who can ignore the fast-and-loose treatment of certain historical facts and don’t care that the film’s depiction of the Mille Miglia – where the story reaches its climax – makes the mighty sports car classic look more like the final of the Formula Ford Festival, is the attention it pays to the women. That aspect, rather than the portrayal of the racing world of 1957, the year in which the action is concentrated, is where it justifies its existence as a Hollywood drama and might even have something interesting to offer.
Three of the most important women in Ferrari’s life are given due prominence. The great Spanish actress Penélope Cruz dials down her natural beauty to play Laura, Enzo’s wife, as a figure bruised and vengeful after 30 years of a turbulent marriage: “She was a different creature then,” her husband says, reflecting on their early days together, “but so was I.” His mother, Adalgisa, is played by the veteran Italian actress Daniela Piperno as a caricature of the eternally suspicious and critical Most impressive is the American actress Shailene
