Ms. Q

Sumptious landscape, architechture, and racing cinemetography and lots of vroom-vroom. Sexy red cars. Sex and violence punctuate the luscious scenes wherein the brand Ferrari epitomizes Italian post-war craftsmanship and manhood. Enzo Ferrari, played by Adam Driver, is an a-hole for cheating on his wife at their factory during the war when she and his son were hidden away safely in the hills. Worse yet, he’s set up a home for the mistress and says he can’t stand Laura Ferrari,his wife, played by an almost unrecognizably unglamorous Penelope Cruz, but still has passionate sex with her on the kitchen table not long after Laura literally takes a shot at him. Seems the death of their son Dino from illness ruined her capacity for joy, and after she finds out the mistress a) has existed for ten years and b) has a son, she’s even unhappier. Yet Laura is a powerful partner and holds 50% of Ferrari shares. Against this sad family melodrama the company faces potential insolvency, unless the Ferrari team can pull off a win in a cross-country 1,000 mile race so dangerous that drivers write letters to their wives and girlfriends the night before in case they don’t come back home. I won’t give any more spoilers but while we found the dialogue at times badly mic’d or hard to decipher and the build-up a little slow, overall a quality production worth watching. Similar to, and for my taste a hair better than, House of Gucci.

So bad it’s almost good, like Showgirls except for you get rid of Vegas and are stuck on a tennis court for 90 minutes. I couldn’t help laughing my a— off with scene after scene of slow mo tennis serves with sexualized grunting set to techno music and repeated shots of the audience twisting their heads in synch back and forth watching the ball go left and right. For some reason Zendaya was out of synch which made it even funnier. Too many flashbacks. A few random windstorms. A three-way makeout session that seems to be the only reason half the audience went. 80’s movies vibes without knowing what the 80’s were about. Self-important, vapid, dull, ridiculous, and entertaining for none of the reasons the people making it wanted it to be. Prior to seeing this I’d seen a few episodes of Euphoria that made me think Zendaya could act, or, become a “real” actress. But the person I saw onscreen was not the character in this second-rate screenplay. It was the same actress’s public-facing persona I saw at Paramount in a Q & A session. Next time, if there is a next time, she needs a director who isn’t too star-struck to direct her, and a better script. The supporting actors did well for what they had to work with. Bottom line—if you must see it wait til it’s out on streamers. Don’t pay extra.

I can't let the top review be from a total idiot who pans this great classic. Since its release in 1944, this film has influenced some of the greats of French New Wave cinema (eg Godard) and many other auteur filmmakers up to the present day. From the chilling performances of Fred McMurty and Barbara Stanwyk to the intricate plotting and portrayal of moral decay, this is one of the best film noirs of all time. The iconic image of Stanwyk's anklet, or Stanwyk in stripes and sunglasses, are visuals burnt into the retinas of cinema history.

Trevor Howard is a fabulous British actor of the Golden Era who here plays a doctor whose patients keep dying during surgery. What I love about this movie is how well structured the plot is in that we literally have no idea who the murderer is with lots of suspense--Is it the doctor? Who's having an affair with who? Who has a motive? Who doesn't have a motive? Yet at the end, all the little clues the audience missed are put together by Scotland Yard in a tight little puzzle that, unlike so many things in life, makes perfect sense.