Column | Why doesn’t Ferrari’s wife, played by Penélope Cruz, leave her husband?

In Ferrari the actors speak with an Italian accent, even Adam Driver. I can’t sit with that and it’s true, with a little bit of mental exercise. Italy has long been fond of all things American. As recently as 1973, pop idol Adriano Celentano scored a hit with a song in imitation American.

And I don’t pay attention to it anymore, because I’m absorbed in this film about Enzo Ferrari, manufacturer of luxury toys on four wheels, and in 1957 mainly an apologist for racing cars and danger to life. Dripped in sun-kissed colors, Ferrari parades through the film like a tense man. His suits hang on wooden shoulders, his sunglasses are just too wide. He has a wife in one villa and in another he maintains a second household with a mistress. That was what important men did, a kind of status symbol. For example, in the 1960s ‘everyone’ in Rome knew why a certain film actor was gaining so much weight: he had to dine twice a day, first with his wife, then with his mistress. He made love there, then slept ‘at home’ to keep up appearances.

Unloved and isolated

In this hypocritical double game, the wife was supposed to maintain her decorum. How did she do that? What did this do to her? No film that took her seriously, what was she thinking, she did not grant her husband love. She was a nag and ‘old’ too.

Now I perk up every time Penélope Cruz appears. She plays Laura, Enzo Ferrari’s wife and she is the heart of the film. That is to her credit, because the film focuses more on the mistress and her son. Unloved and isolated, Cruz lets the corners of her mouth droop. She walks slightly with her legs apart. Each dress looks like a slip dress. Laura Ferrari no longer invests in being elegant, but she does invest in her fury.

It could be that Cruz took her inspiration for this role from an Italian film classic: Sophia Loren Una giornata particolare. Cruz echoes her appearance, her motor skills and her lostness. And just like Loren (43 at the time), Cruz (49) had to conquer her acting talent from the scorching attention to her appearance. Indeed, she is not 25 anymore. But look, even with shadows under her eyes and a rounder waist, she’s a great actress.

Laura is more intelligent than Enzo. She could do without him, why doesn’t she let him go? Cruz suggests it, but I only realized that in the theater, at a show by Annemarie Prins. It plays the monologue of a very elderly woman, whose spirit ‘walks with God’, as my mother called it. Old is old and the pain no longer wants to wear off. “I’m not afraid,” she chants. She is scared, but fear keeps her going. Just like Laura Ferrari. She is afraid of being abandoned and she wants to keep it that way. Because then she knows she is alive.

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