Film starts on cruise control, then floors it

Adam Driver is back to barking in an Italian accent after the heinous “House of Gucci,” only this time he sounds a lot less Russian and thankfully did not take Lady Gaga along for the ride.

Grazie mille, Adam!

And ride he does as Enzo Ferrari in director Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” a shapeshifting drama that zeroes in on one consequential chapter of the complicated ex-race car driver and automaker’s life during the late 1950s. 

The imposing actor takes some getting used to. Come to think of it, he always does. But once you grow accustomed to Driver’s deep, taffy-chewing voice and hurtful glares, he capably transforms into the ice-cold innovator in Modena, Italy, who was an unspeakably ruthless competitor.

Away from the sexy cars at the office, 59-year-old Enzo is also a womanizer. The sole household rule, his abrasive wife Laura (Penelope Cruz) says, is that he must wake up in bed with her. When he doesn’t one morning, the spurned spouse nearly shoots him in the head. 

Laura, a meaty part for Cruz, is on edge. She has been crushed ever since their beloved son Dino died a year earlier at age 24.

Enzo wasn’t sleeping with just another fling, either — but Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley, the Prosecco to Cruz’s Negroni), a serious lover he hides away in a nearby town and with whom he fathered another child. As sweet little Piero becomes old enough to comprehend his situation, a risky question is posed: Will he take the name Ferrari and become the heir to the family business?

Mann melds those soap-opera fireworks — and screaming Cruz has enough gunpowder for 10 Fourth of Julys — with Enzo’s obsession with vehicles and winning. The former driver believes the best way to sell cars, especially as his namesake company is facing financial headwinds, is to emerge victorious in major races, such as the Mille Miglia. 

With the company struggling financially, he recruits a team of accomplished, albeit very different, drivers. Enzo demands that they risk their lives to bring home the guanciale.

There’s Pierro Taruffi (Patrick Dempsey, who gets the honor of doing the terrible Italian accent this time), British Stirling Moss (Ben Collins) and hotshot Spaniard Alfonso de Portago (Gabriel Leone). Together they must ensure that a Ferrari — not a Fiat or Maserati — reaches the end of the nationwide course first. 

The biographical film is most effective if you are unaware of the specific history of the 1957 edition of that race. What, for a time, we’re shrewdly set up to think is a “who’s gonna win?” sports movie turns out not to be that at all. 

From the outset, the Mille Miglia sequence is an extremely complicated one to shoot. It rolls believably through miles of narrow stone streets and past familiar landmarks. To achieve that feat either took a pile of permits or a photo op with an Italian politician. In any case, it’s beautifully and suspensefully done — and an important sleight of hand to distract from what’s to come.

Because Mann then treats a jarring 10 seconds with uncompromising frankness, as if to simply say “Here’s what happened,” completely devoid of style. 

The film, admittedly, does not rev up as fast as a Ferrari. The director initially prefers a relaxed pace and almost sepia color scheme that make us unsure, sometimes in frustration, of what the vibe of the story is supposed to be.

Cruz’s Laura’s pointed jealousy and Woodley’s innocent dreams are what keep us invested.

The cars come second, until they barrel ferociously into the foreground and we fully grasp the reason for the scenic route.