Dir. Nicholas Winding Refn
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston
The film opens with Ryan Gosling’s Driver acting as wheelman for hire to a pair of thieves. Tracking the police and a basketball game on the radio, he uses the streets, shadows and eventually a crowd of revelling basketball fans to drop off his clients and blend into the night unseen. A synth song then kicks in over the soundtrack as the title appears on the screen in hot pink announcing Nicholas Winding Refn’s homage to 80’s driving movies.
The film plays out in two halves. In the first, Driver and Carey Mulligan’s Irene quietly fall for each other over a series of long looks and charged silences. It is in this half that we see the Driver’s human side as he bonds with Irene’s son whose father, Standard (Oscar Isaac), is in prison. When Standard returns the film changes gear as Standard’s criminal past catches up with him and Driver helps him out for the good of his family. The job goes wrong and the long wistful looks are changed for blasts of explicit violence and gore. Forks go in eyes, knives slice wrists and shotguns take off heads.
The shift in tone could have been jarring but it works well as the Driver’s violent side comes out because of his affection and his willingness to protect Irene and her son, despite what may happen to him. The two aspects are blended perfectly in a memorable scene in a lift where, in slow motion, the Driver kisses Irene before stamping on a man’s head till his skull crushes.
The first half of the film can seem a little slow as the arty long looks stack up but the film still retains a good pace. Those turning up to see a bullet a minute action film with car chases thrown in after every couple of lines of dialogue will be disappointed and bored by its artistic leanings and 80’s nostalgia, but these are what make the film interesting and truly great. It’s the films expertly crafted images which will stick in the mind; the driver wearing a stunt mask, framed in a window staring in at his antagonist while an operatic song soars over the top, two hands wordlessly coming together on a gear stick and Ryan Gosling chewing a toothpick, wearing a silver jacket with a golden scorpion on the back looking effortlessly cool. The film climaxes with a well edited scene which matches dialogue and violence effectively before putting us back on the road, travelling through the night.
The cast is padded out with familiar faces, Bryan Cranston (Malcolm in the Middle’s dad) being Driver’s father figure, Christina Hendricks looking beautiful in a surprisingly small role and Ron Perlman being his usual menacing self with his aggressive, bulbous face.
In a week where I saw both Drive and Thomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy it was Winding Refn’s film that stuck in my mind in the following days. With great visuals, soundtrack, performances and atmosphere, Drive emerges as one of the best of the year.
4 out of 5 Buttons
(An alternative version of this review appears in Pulp issue 1 10/10/11)
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