HE commenter Manwe Sulimo: “Why do you think festival critics are meh on Ferrari?”
HE: “Perhaps because festival critics don’t like it when a movie is delivering two things at once, an emotionally intimate family drama along with an exciting, high-torque racecar flick. Maybe they think it should be just one thing and not both at the same time?
“Ferrari is mostly an intimate, dialogue-driven thing about Enzo Ferrari’s family and business matters and therefore doesn’t really commit to the racing stuff in a sustained, whole-hog, Steve McQueen-in-Le Mans way until the final 35 minutes or thereabouts.
“I’m guessing that younger (Millennial, Zoomer) critics might feel a tad removed or skeptical given that Ferrari isn’t set in an era that they personally relate to. 1957 (i.e., the year of the Mille Miglia tragedy) was 66 years ago. For critics who regard the 1980s as a long time ago, that may be a bridge too far.
“What I particularly loved about Ferrari is Eric Messerschmidt‘s cinematography, which carries the Gordon Willis torch and is very reminiscent of the palette of The Godfather, Part II.”