92% Drive

There aren't all that many movies that I walk out of excited about. Don't get me wrong, I love movies and watching anything of some standard is possibly the most fun I have while my clothes are still on, but there are maybe three of four films a year, possibly less, that I actually come away from wondering if I can fit in another session right there and then. Drive is one of them: brutal, beautiful and brilliant. And I'm not just talking about Ryan Gosling. Drive follows the story of a part-time film stunt driver and part-time armed robbery getaway driver as his world suddenly gets turned upside down. In any great film there's a tough balance between style and substance. The good ones get it right. The bad ones don't. Nicolas Winding Refn walks a tough tightrope with Drive, intertwining a twisting mob story with an intoxicating film noir style. He walks it well though, making sure that the more surreal moments are lavished upon with style and mood while the realism is played completely straight; long lasting shots with minimalistic camera work helping to create a sense of reality in a stylised world. His camera work within the confines of a simple car is brilliant, making more inventive use of an enclosed space than would have been thought possible. Despite the fact that a good deal of the film is in slow motion, it's used to great effect; highlighting situations and moments rather than slow-mo for the sake of it. But it's his confidence which is the most astonishing. Apart from a few cult hits, Refn's repertoire isn't as stellar as Drive would suggest. From the ice-cold opening scene, Refn is obviously not disposed to spelling anything out to anyone, continuing this tactic throughout the rest of the film. He relies instead on the subtle nuance of a character or a moment, trusting the audience to be patient through the moments they don't understand. The film also moves at a glacial pace at times, taking an age while focussing on a moment or a feeling before moving like a bullet through the next scene. It's a challenging ask for the audience at times and can often prove disconcerting. It's this unhurried, unashamedly different pace which gives the film its power, as any moment could give way to an explosion of violence or devastation or, just as likely, nothing at all and keeps the audience guessing until the very last second. Refn continues this sense of unpredictability throughout the entire film, making any moment tense enough have you on the edge of your seat. Based on James Sallis' book, Hossein Amini's screenplay is a thing of minimalistic beauty. There are no enigmatic speeches or famous last cliches. Instead, we have a stripped back document of searing realism, relying on a word or phrase to convey an entire point of view. The Driver's sporadic speeches are made that much more poignant and rivetting by their absence throughout the rest of the film. Hours of lip-biting and googly-eyes are summed up in a phrase, volumes of emotion conveyed by a single sentence, even at times a single word. This precise writing style grounds the film when the more surreal moments threaten to take away from the movie's realism. Amini also shows an affinity for depth of character, with everyone on the screen being as intricate and complex as if they were taken straight out of real life, especially with his main character. This complexity helps to inform and enhace both the direction and the performances of the film, creating a beautifully bleak environment for the film. Cliff Martinez's elctro score is quietly brilliant, underscoring the drama deftly with a sense of understated eeriness which permeates throughout the film. The standout piece, however, is College's "A Real Hero," which becomes the film's de facto theme song. It's a curious blend of electro-pop with an ethereal feel to it, paradoxically working perfectly with the movie. The piece's main refrain, "to be a real human being and a real hero," almost sums up the entire feeling of the film, as the Driver's journey eventually makes him into both these things where he never was before. Speaking of the Driver, we come to the film's coup de grace. I like to think of myself as pretty open-minded when it comes to performers, bar a few exceptions, but I never thought that Ryan Gosling had it in him. His performances in Fracture and Blue Valentine as well as his fantastic performance in Crazy Stupid Love were good but might as well have been pre-show warm-ups to his work here. His performance as the Driver is so self-assured, so quietly confident, so inexplicably cool, it's impossible not to be amazed. He is incredibly restrained during the first half of the film, his emotions leaking out in almost imperceptible nuance with a small half-smile or a flicker of contempt on his face, and becomes even more powerful during the second half, his unshakable calm giving way to some raw emotion or barely controlled rage. But there is no Oscar-baiting breakdown, no scenery-chewing here; just a finely tuned inhabitance of an almost exclusively internal character. This is Gosling's career-defining performance and it, for lack of anything else, makes this film completely unmissable. But it's not just Gosling who turns a fantastic performance. Albert Brooks shows his sinsiter side as Bernie Rose. He's equal parts charm and ice-cold as he impassively ratchets up an impressive body count. Bryan Cranston is brilliant as the wheedling mechanic Shannon and Ron Perlman is, well, Ron Perlman. Does he have to be anything else? Gosling's counterpart Carey Mulligan is beautifully vulnerable as Irene and is just as nuanced and emotive as Gosling with her smaller screen-time. It's a credit to the two of them that even with this diminished screen time their relationship is believable and likeable enough to win the audience's support for the entire film. All these factors included, Drive's biggest achievement is its consistent and dogged avoidance of what trend analysers would label as "cool," the avoidance of which makes it one of the coolest movies you'll see. Explosions are cool, Linkin Park is cool, robots in disguise are cool. You want find any of these here but you won't find a cooler movie at the cinema's this year, from Driver's uncool scorpion jacket to the uncool soundtrack right down to the uncool pacing. The same way Quentin Tarantino created his own brand of cool with Pulp Fiction, Nicolas Winding Refn has created something confidently, heroically uncool for the ages. Defining Scene: The brilliant, uncomprimising, emotionally devastating ending. Although it's difficult to find a bad scene here, this one is the standout. Quotes: If I drive for you, you give me a time and a place. I give you a five-minute window, anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours no matter what. I don't sit in while you're running it down; I don't carry a gun... I drive. How about this - shut your mouth or I'll kick your teeth down your throat and I'll shut it for you.

October 28, 2011

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/drive_2011/

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