Ferrari (2023)

Direction: Michael Mann
Country: USA

The accomplished director Michael Mann, known for films like The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Collateral (2004), and Ali (2001), brings his expertise to this biographical sports drama centered around Enzo Ferrari, the renowned Italian entrepreneur and founder of the Ferrari Grand Prix motor racing team. Written by Troy Kennedy Martin, based on the biopic Enzo Ferrari: The Man, the Cars, the Races, the Machine by journalist Brock Yates, the film delves into Enzo’s business challenges, his tumultuous relationship with wife and business associate Laura Domenica Garello, his solace found in mistress Lina Lardi and their son, and his drivers of choice - in particular Alfonso de Portago. 

Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz give a pair of excellent performances as husband and wife, contributing considerably to the relative success of a film that revealed to be less exciting than initially expected. There are some spectacular racing sequences but the film misses greater opportunities to shine and ultimately wobbles in its struggle to hold our interest. Essentially, the emotions are subdued, compromising the film’s provocative intents. Having said that, and despite some occasional dragging pace, the narrative follows logically, and the facts are delivered with no major flaws or startles.

As a result, half the audience will gasp at the drama, while the the other half - the auto racing enthusiasts - may seize the moment to deepen their historic background on Ferrari team and its founder.

Official Competition (2022)

Direction: Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn 
Country: Spain / Argentina 

The pair of Argentinean directors, Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat, made ten films together, with the heavily awarded The Distinguished Citizen (2016) as a standout. Their newest work, Official Competition, is a satirical spoof structured around the rehearsals for the shooting of a film financed by a bored stiff billionaire businessman. 

Even if not always surprising, and playing a bit too long for my taste, the film revealed to be more engaging than I was expecting. A very confident Penelope Cruz appears in top form as a lesbian avant-garde director who knows what she wants. Her investment in the film is matched by Antonio Banderas and Oscar Martinez, who play talented awarded actors with huge egos and different levels of ambition. 

The film delves into complex relationships in cinema, usually hidden from the public, as they happen behind the scenes. And because we have fine experienced actors playing actors and directors, the whole thing makes even more sense, and some truth lurks from behind the wild and funny absurdity of the scenes.

The directors, borrowing the minimalist scenarios of Lars Von Trier’s Dogville and Manderlay for a bit, openly address rivalries, hypocrisy, banalities, and occasionally improper behavior during the process of an artistic creation. This Competition is a pitch-perfect joke that, at times, breaks up the vibes with unevenly inspired sketches. However, it never runs totally out of steam.

Everybody Knows (2018)

Directed by Asghar Farhadi
Country: Spain / France / Italy

The work of some distinguished directors loses the charm and often the focus when they operate in a different cultural milieu. This syndrome seems to have caught Iranian master Asghar Farhadi, who gave us gems like About Elly (2009), A Separation (2011), and The Salesman (2016). Sad to say he stains his filmography with Nobody Knows, a fictional thriller set in Spain that unfolds monotonously and only sporadically piques our interest. Orienting a luxurious cast that includes Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz and Ricardo Darin, Farhadi failed to provide startles and thrills, relying solely on the dramatic side of things to impress. But even that factor was disastrous as he tiresomely attempts to suggest connections between the past and the present.

The film starts by capturing some newspaper clippings that reveal the disappearance of a little girl named Carmen. When Laura (Cruz) arrives at her small, picturesque hometown with their three children to attend her sister’s wedding, she couldn’t imagine she had been already chosen as an indirect target for something similar. In recent years, she has been living in Buenos Aires, where her architect husband, Alejandro (Darin), remained due to work commitments.

The wedding’s festivities suddenly turn into a river of tears when Laura’s teen daughter, Irene (Carla Campra), disappears mysteriously. She had been kidnapped while resting in her room and the ransom is 30 thousand euros. Obviously, there was a mole at the party and the kidnappers can be either family or friends. Jorge (José Ángel Egido ), a retired policeman who acts as he knows all the answers, studies possible motives and tries to find a logic for the puzzle.

All the same, the only one with the financial means to resolve the imbroglio is Paco (Bardem), Laura’s former lover, who is well established as a local vineyard owner. Intriguingly, Paco’s wife, Bea (Bárbara Lennie), receives the same warnings from the kidnappers. Secrets are unveiled slowly and unsavorily, while the drama becomes a disorganized spiral of affective manipulations.

Farhadi keeps on working family themes, but with a voice that lacks articulation. He brings a bit of Almodovar during the colorful party and the dramatic flair of Susanne Bier, but everything is inconsistently pasted with a melodramatic television air. There’s little to differentiate this film from other generic drama-thrillers out there, and even if the images shine bright, they were not enough to make Everybody Knows glittering like gold. To tell the truth, this was more of a pale experience that puts Farhadi under pressure for his next move.