Ford v Ferrari looked set to be one of the most forgettable prestige films of 2019, but through awards season it has managed to cling onto its buzz with a good number of technical nominations. Recounting the efforts of two automotive racing legends to lead Ford’s American racing team to victory over Ferrari’s Italian team in the 1966 Le Mans, the film is first and foremost a demonstration of incredibly tight editing, visual effects, and sound design.
Its most fast-paced, high-octane moments could have easily been a mess of moving images and noises that poorly directed action movies have conditioned audiences to accept in the past, and yet it maintains a sense of orientation and smoothness that is so rare in this genre. Even the sound design is clear and precise, so that when characters are delivering dialogue in close proximity to racetracks they are still completely coherent.
It is a shame that it only reaches the pinnacle of its technical achievements in the movie’s final act, and only after spending most of its run time dwelling on the “obstacle” scenes that come packaged with every sports drama film. It is the writing that lets the film down, as it treads similar ground to what we have seen before in movies of this ilk.
The staleness certainly can’t be put down the actors – Tracy Letts and Matt Damon are putting in decent performances, and Christian Bale shines as the fiery, charismatic driver, Ken Miles. Bale has even picked up a few acting nominations this awards season, though his snub isn’t a terrible grievance given the calibre of actors that have been nominated. Outside of the sensitive family scenes between Miles and his family, the material the actors have to work with is lacking in emotion and stakes.
Ford v Ferrari wants to be about the individual’s struggle to maintain integrity under the threat of corporate control and greed, but it doesn’t prod the idea much further than what it delivers on the surface. It is a crowd pleaser, and a technically competent one at that, but it isn’t going to stick around for long in discussions once the Oscars is over.
