‘Motorvalley’ Review: Family Drama and High-Speed Racing, Italian Style (Netflix)

A decade ago, filmmaker Matteo Rovere scored an unexpected international hit with Veloce come il vento (Fast Like the Wind), a rare example of an Italian commercial film that managed to travel beyond its borders and even pick up awards along the way. Rare, because action movies centered on car racing usually only get theatrical releases when backed by major Hollywood productions. Rovere, however, has the chops to play in that league, and with Motorvalley he attempts a similar gamble—this time in series form.

Like that earlier film, Motorvalley blends family melodrama with action and suspense, structured around an auto racing championship—here, the Italian GT circuit. Parents and children, lovers, trauma, money, racing teams, and the inevitable technical problems that come with high-level competition all serve as narrative excuses for Rovere and his team to stage a long succession of tense, fast-paced automotive sequences, both on and off the track. Racing here isn’t just about points; speed is treated as a way of life.

The central trio shares one thing in common: they’re all at their lowest personal and professional point, which is precisely what brings them together. The story kicks off when Elena (Giulia Michelini) illegally modifies a car from her father’s racing team, a tweak that allows them to win a Grand Prix. When the cheating is discovered, the consequences are severe: the team loses its points, is banned for a year, and the patriarch, Dionisi, never recovers from the blow and dies. Elena was meant to inherit the team, but after the scandal she’s pushed aside. Control goes to her brother, who promptly turns it into a branding platform for an energy drink. Left out in the cold, Elena decides to start from scratch. The problem is simple: she has no team.

That’s how she connects with two misfit talents who, for different reasons, are out of the business. One is Blu (Caterina Forza), a gifted but wildly irresponsible young driver with a criminal record. Blu spends her nights racing illegally and stealing luxury cars. No one wants her anywhere near a professional team, but Elena sees both her raw talent and her own desperate need. To train her, she brings in Arturo (Luca Argentero), a former driver turned mechanic whose career ended after a traumatic accident. Coincidentally—or not—that same accident killed Blu’s father, himself a former racer. The question, inevitably, is whether the three of them can coexist long enough to build a team capable of competing for the championship.

The series touches on the expected elements of this world: Blu’s grueling training regimen, which she struggles to commit to; Elena’s chronic lack of funding—her family cuts her off entirely; and a growing rivalry between Blu and the star driver of the rival team. As the season progresses, secondary competitors fade into the background and the narrative tightens around the trio’s internal tensions and their conflict with the far more powerful team run by Elena’s brother. There’s also, unsurprisingly, the hint of a romance between Arturo and Elena, telegraphed from the very first moment they share the screen again.

All of this formulaic family drama mainly exists to frame what viewers are really here for: races (both official and illegal), chases, underground competitions, fistfights, shouting matches, threats, and more shouting. Everything unfolds in that familiar register of heightened aggression and faux-ironic humor that governs these interpersonal dynamics. Motorvalley—named after the Emilia-Romagna region where Italy’s major racing manufacturers are based, and where the series was shot—is pure formula for fans of Fast & Furious and Drive to Survive: tense storytelling, hyperactive editing (there’s practically a cut every half-second), and nonstop electronic music that never seems to slow down, not even to refuel.

There’s no magic or mystery here, but it’s also true that the series delivers exactly what it promises. Adrenaline, cars, and action—Italian style. Nothing more, nothing less.