8/10
The driver in Drive is just that, he drives. He has no past and even no name. One would guess prison was a part of his past
but that is just a guess. The driver
only has two distinguishing characteristics, he is extremely adept behind the
wheel of a car and he wears a strikingly odd white jacket with an orange
scorpion on the back. The scorpion’s
meaning is somewhat explained and furthers a philosophical undercurrent in Drive
which is not apparent in the previews.
The audience I saw Drive with on a late Saturday night
opening weekend started to laugh at the screen and mock the actors, the
direction, and the jacket. Their
expectations did not match what was unfolding on the screen. They expected multiple car chases between the
driver and the cops, backstabbing crooks, and action sequences just for the
sake of action sequences. Well, those clichés
are not here and it transforms what would have been just another Gone
in 60 Seconds to a film which operates on a different, more
introspective plane.
The actors in Drive
are well known as true actors who respect their craft: Ryan Gosling, Carey
Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, and Albert Brooks. Gosling has shown his chops before with The
Believer, Half Nelson, and Lars and the Real Girl and might
have the fewest lines of dialogue ever by a film’s main character. Carey Mulligan, still resonant from An
Education, pulls off a sympathetic next door neighbor who needs the
driver’s help even though she may not know it.
Bryan Cranston is assigned a more stock character and Albert
Brooks who usually plays bumbling schlubs gets a turn as an antagonist
for once. The only sour note is Ron
Perlman who just plays an extension of his Sons of Anarchy
character.
This script requires true actors to flesh it out. Scenes with words are few and far between so that
facial expressions say more in conversations than dialogue does, especially
between Gosling and Mulligan. There is a
reason you will not see Jennifer Aniston and Ryan
Reynolds in Drive; there is now way they could just sit in a room,
stare at each other, and talk to each other with their eyes and cheek
bones.
Drive’s director, Nicolas Winding Refn, won Best
Director at the Cannes Film Festival for one reason, necessity. If the film does not need it, it is not
there. For example, when the driver is
waiting outside while a robbery is going on inside, there is no sound. If you were waiting in a car with the radio
off, it would be exceptionally quiet, just like in the film. There is no background noise, no radio on,
nothing. The audience was absolutely
quiet right along with the film straining to hear what was going on in the
building next door. Refn could have
extended the car chase scenes with more screeching tires, made the scenes
between Gosling and Mulligan more romantic, and turned down the accompanying
existential philosophy. By choosing not
to do these things is why he won Best Director.
Existential is the most apt word to describe the driver. He gives his own life meaning and
purpose. His background is never brought
up once, but something in his past has shaped his actions. He lives his life sincerely despite the myriad
distractions of obviously crooked associates, menacing goons, and the
unfamiliar terrain of romantic feelings towards a woman. What truly makes Drive so good is all of the
pitfalls it avoids by just focusing the camera on Gosling on Mulligan and
letting it go from there. Mainstream
audiences looking for standard car chases and fist fights on a Saturday night
will not understand Drive; the philosophical undercurrents here make them
uncomfortable. Drive is for those who
appreciate diving in a bit deeper rather than wading in the cliché kiddy
pool.
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