Michael Mann’s “Ferrari” Starring Adam Driver Revs Into High Gear in First Trailer

Legendary director Michael Mann (Heat, Collateral, The Insider) has been thinking about making Ferrari for decades, and now, at long last, Mann’s meticulously crafted epic about Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) is here. Ferrari, which is set to have its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival this week, has dropped its first trailer.

In this nearly wordless 90-second glimpse, it’s 1957, and we’re behind the wheel of one of Enzo Ferrari’s namesake racecars as it barrels along one of the most dangerous races in the world, the brutal 1,000-mile sprint across Italy called the Mille Miglia. Ferrari is in crisis—his son, Dino, has died a year earlier; his marriage to Laura (Penelope Cruz), the woman who helped him build the Ferrari factory, is strained from the loss and from his relationship with his mistress, Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley). With the Mille Miglia coming up, Ferrari’s team needs to win big, but the cost of their obsession could be life and death, as the notoriously deadly race has already taken lives before.

Ferrari will cover one of the most infamous catastrophes in racing history, when one of Ferrari’s racecars blew a tire during the Mille Miglia, and the driver, plus nine spectators, died in the ensuing crash. The disaster turned into a legal battle as Ferrari and the tire manufacturer were charged with manslaughter. Ferrari was filmed primarily in Brescia, Italy, where the Mille Miglia race took place.

Ferrari also stars Patrick Dempsey as racecar driver Piero Taruffi, Jack O’Connell as driver Peter Collins, Sarah Gadon as Linda Christian, and Gabriel Leone as driver Alfonso de Portago.

Mann adapted the script alongside the late Troy Kennedy-Martin from Brock Yate’s 1991 biography “Enzo Ferrari – The Man, The Cars, The Races, The Machine.”

Check out the trailer below. Ferrari hits theaters on Christmas Day.

Here’s the official synopsis:

It is the summer of 1957. Behind the spectacle of Formula 1, ex-racer Enzo Ferrari is in crisis. Bankruptcy threatens the factory he and his wife, Laura 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. Meanwhile, his drivers’ passion to win pushes them to the edge as they launch into the treacherous 1,000-mile race across Italy, the Mille Miglia.

Featured image: Adam Driver is Enzo Ferrari in Michael Mann’s “Ferrari.” Courtesy NEON.