Movie Reviews
Ferrari movie bores as much as it thrills
Racing legend Enzo Ferrari was a complex man and Michael Mann’s biopic is a complex film.
Set in one year of Ferrari’s life, 1957, Mann highlights the many competing challenges Ferrari had to contend with, but doesn’t excuse him for his capacity to be cold, detached and ruthless.
There are probably three different films contained within Ferrari and much like the myriad elements of a car engine, it can work in symphony, and at other times, it stalls and sputters out. Ferrari is a patchy movie that bores as much as it thrills with its lethargic pace.
At the heart of it is a portrait of a man who could be loving and warm but rarely allows himself to feel connected when he’s surrounded by so much death.
Witness the moment when driver Eugenio Castellotti (Marino Franchitti) goes off-track during a test and the car and him is thrown metres into air. It’s certain death. Enzo’s (Adam Driver) face is unmoving, and he tells the aspiring racer standing next to him, Alfonso de Portago (Gabriel Leone), to call his office on Monday. A spot on the team has just opened him.
Taken on its own, it’s a scene that makes a callous monster out of him but placed within the wider context of the film and of the dangerous history of race-car driving, it makes more sense.
The film takes place a year after Enzo and his wife Laura (Penelope Cruz) lost their only son to an illness. The grief hangs over them both and their fractured relationship. Laura is a spitfire, fuelled by a bitterness and a toughness in Cruz’s performance. She and Enzo may have an arrangement, but it doesn’t mean she’s not hurt by his infidelity.
The only people Enzo softens around is his mistress Lina (Shailene Woodley) and their son Piero (Guiseppe Festinese), who has stashed away in a secret country house.
The other aspect of the film is this messy personal situation has intersected with the revelation that Ferrari is on the brink of receivership. Enzo is only interested in racing and as he says, he sells cars to fund the racing, not the other way around.
He needs to mastermind a financial partnership with outside investors without losing control over the business, and the only way he can do that is Ferrari wins the Mille Miglia, a notorious 1000-mile competition that is driven on Italy’s public roads and resulted in 56 deaths over its 30-year history.
The 1957 Mille Miglia happens to be the last time it was ever raced and there is an infamous crash scene late in the game that details why – Mann restages it in gratuitous slow-motion and you really have to ask why that was necessary to make the point that racing is a deadly, deadly pursuit.
Mann weaves together a lot of elements and it doesn’t always work. Nor do you always believe if the 40-year-old Driver, as prodigiously talented as he is, is passing for Enzo at 59. In the moments when the film lulls, that age difference becomes distracting.
What Ferrari does well is the cinematography by Erik Messerschmidt (a two-time collaborator of David Fincher’s), Cruz’s performance and in exploring the effect of Enzo on the women in his life. There are also individual scenes that put goosebumps on your arm, such when Enzo is visiting his dead son’s mausoleum.
But Ferrari is not a sprint to the finish, it demands patience and it doesn’t always mount the argument that it deserves it.
Rating: 3/5
Ferrari is in cinemas now
By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer
Posted: May 8th, 2026 / 08:34 PM
AFFECTION movie poster | ©2026 Brainstorm Media
Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Jessica Rothe, Joseph Cross, Julianna Layne
Writer: BT Meza
Director: BT Meza
Distributor: Brainstorm Media
Release Date: May 8, 2026
AFFECTION is an odd title for this tale. While it is about a number of topics and emotions, fondness isn’t one of them. Obsession, definitely. Love, possibly. The kind of general warm fellow feelings associated with “affection”? No.
There have been a lot of movies lately in which characters – mostly women – are grappling with false identities and/or false memories imposed upon them, mostly by men.
Let us stipulate that the protagonist (Jessica Rothe) in AFFECTION is not an android or in an artificial reality. However, we can tell something is way off from the opening sequence. A car is stalled on a tree-bordered highway. Rothe’s character is lying face down on the asphalt beside it, possibly dead.
But then the young woman rises, dragging a broken ankle. She experiences a full-body seizure. Fighting to recover, she sees oncoming headlights and tries to run, only to be hit by a car.
The woman wakes up in a bed she doesn’t recognize, next to a man (Joseph Cross) she likewise is sure she’s never seen before. One big confrontation later, the man says his name is Bruce – and that the woman is his wife, Ellie.
Ellie insists that her name is Sarah Thompson, and she is married to someone else, with a son. When she sees her reflection in a mirror, she doesn’t relate to the face looking back at her.
Bruce counters that Ellie has a rare neurological condition that causes her to block out her waking life and believe her dreams are real. This is why they agreed, together, to move to this isolated house, without the kinds of interruptions that can hinder Ellie’s recovery.
The set-up is presented in a way where we share Ellie’s skepticism. But Ellie and Bruce’s little daughter Alice (Julianna Layne) immediately identifies Ellie as “Mommy!” Alice appears to be too young to be in on any kind of deception, so what is going on here?
AFFECTION eventually explains this via a helpful videotape, though it’s so convoluted that viewers watching on streaming may want to replay the sequence to make sure they understand the exposition.
Writer/director BT Meza musters a sense of menace and lurking weirdness, as well as making great use of his location.
We still have a lot of questions, many of which are still unanswered by the film’s end. It may not matter to the points AFFECTION is trying to make, but a better sense of exactly how all this started might help our investment.
As it is, despite a heroically versatile performance by Rothe, a credible and anguished turn by Cross and appealing work from Layne, we’re so busy trying to piece together what’s important and what’s not and how we’re supposed to feel about all of it that it can be hard to keep track of the action as it unfolds.
Agree or not, Meza’s arguments are lucid and illustrated clearly by AFFECTION’s events. However, the movie is structured in a way that becomes more frustrating as it goes. We comprehend it intellectually but can’t engage viscerally.
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RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — In this episode of 8News Reel Talk, digital producer Julia Broberg is joined by anchor Deanna Allbrittin and reporter Allison Williams to talk about “The Devil Wears Prada 2.”
The hosts gave their reviews and assigned the following star ratings:
Deanna: ★★★★.5
Allison: ★★★.25
Julia: ★★
To watch more livestreams and digital video content, head to the WRIC+ Originals page. You can also watch full on-demand videos on your smart TV using the WRIC+ app.
Billie Eilish fans prepare yourself, the much talked about secret project has finally arrived on the big screens!
Billie Eilish has always been about intimacy over artifice, but her latest concert film takes that to a visceral new level. Co-directed by Eilish and James Cameron, Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) manages to bridge the gap between a massive stadium show and the quiet grit of life backstage.
The film starts 18 minutes out from the show and builds the tension until audiences are literally folded into a box with her. Being taken under the stage, passing fans who have no idea she’s inches away, sets a tone of total immersion. What makes this film different is the balance between the spectacle and the behind-the-scenes reality. We see the creative shorthand between Billie and James Cameron as they chase what she calls the “best kind of sensory overload”.
The film is very much fan focussed, with the sound mix being so specific that you can hear individual fans singing along in sync with the visuals.
There are so many standout moments, the handheld camera work during “Bad Guy” that gives a dizzying POV of the band, and the chilling minute of silence Billie requests from the crowd to record a vocal loop.
The film captures her unique stage presence. Influenced by rap culture, Billie refuses to have anyone else on stage, unlike many female artists that use back up dancers. Billie can hold the entire stadium in awe by herself which is incredible to witness, until Finneas joins her for a beautiful, emotional piano set.
Between the high-tech visuals and the “Puppy Room” (where she keeps rescue dogs for staff to decompress), the film feels incredibly personal. While the film doesn’t give us any new insights into Billie, Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) is an enjoyable experience that elevates the tradition concert film.
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