Drive My Car

       

 From Don't Touch The Watch:

A review of the excellent Drive (2011)

         

   

Recalling the genesis of the film, Danish director Nicholas Winding Refn spoke about his first disastrous meeting with actor Ryan Gosling, who, at the time was interested in having him direct the still gestating movie Drive, based on the book by James Sallis. Just prior to the meeting, Refn had taken ill with a fever. In the hope of alleviating the symptoms, he ingested a sizeable quantity of pain medication, leaving him - in his own words - ‘high as a kite’.

             

With his condition worsening, Refn was forced to abandon the meeting and asked Gosling to drive him back to his hotel. Here was a foreigner in a vast, strange city being driven through the black night of L.A., by a movie star, with the car radio as the only sound deflecting the silence between them. There, in that moment, a hazy half-idea suddenly sprung into Refn’s drug-addled mind, one he quickly shared with Gosling: ‘We could make a movie about a man who drives around at night listening to pop music, it being his only emotional release’. Gosling’s response to this eureka moment was one befitting the character he would soon play: ‘Cool, I’m in.’
   

  

The movie that eventually birthed from that night of fevered intoxication offers a rare return to the cerebral automotive escapism of such ‘70s classics as Two Lane Blacktop, Vanishing Point and most notably The Driver, starring Ryan O’Neal. Refn combines these free-roaring, existential road movies with the glossy feel of '80s crime movies and the synth-pop-cool of Miami Vice.  

What little plot there is concerns the unspoken attraction between 'The Driver' and his married neighbour 'Irene' – a soft-spoken Carey Mulligan – who is shackled by duty to her recently paroled husband (Oscar Isaac), whose release acts as the fatal catalyst for a series of unfortunate events that change the course of their lives forever. 

     

Rather than being a hindrance, the slight meat on the movie’s proverbial storytelling bones actually work in its favour. Like Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. or American Gigolo, this is a work of sight and sound, a world away from Michael Mann’s multi-layered epic Heat. 

      

        

An acknowledged fan of genre cinema, Refn clearly relishes letting the visual and audio cues from these previous established endeavours wash over the screen, as the neon-drenched world of L.A. plays home to the scorpion-jacketed, no-name ‘Driver’, played with icy intensity by Gosling, who turns the character into an instant icon of cool. 

      

Unlike 'Charles Bronson', whose mouth is as verbally dexterous as his muscles are big, here 'The Driver' is monosyllabic almost to the point of parody. Gosling somehow manages to pull off this acting tightrope with a quiet understated menace that has been sorely absent since his fiery turn as a Jewish neo-Nazi in The Believer.

      

As with the characters that populate Refn's previous films, both 'The Driver' and Albert Brooks’ savagely intense wise-guy 'Bernie' are men who find catharsis through violence. To them life's problems can be solved through carnal acts, which they see as a necessary solution to the emotional turmoil that dwells within them. These men of fists and blood can only truly be alive when standing over the beaten, and in some cases deceased, body of another human being.

        

        

One point of contention for some viewers was that for a movie that seemed to be presenting itself as a sort of Fast and Furious type car chase movie, when the reality was far from that one-dimensional action fare. One woman in America even went so far as to attempt legal action against the makers for falsely advertising it as such, entirely missing the point of Refn’s homage. Instead, I think the title can be interpreted in a myriad of ways, one of which centres being the basic human drives like greed and emotion, and of course the escapism that comes from hitting the open road. 

      

For champions of Refn and Gosling’s earlier filmic endeavours, Drive comes as rewarding delight that marks the beginning of a fruitful teaming. Given that their next venture Only God Forgives is nearing completion, their cinematic future looks promising.

   
In The Director's Own Words:

       

       

Drive is comprised of a simple series of events — it just happens in front of you. It’s a movie that’s like a carousel; it presents a sequence of emotions that just transforms in front of you and ultimately provides some catharsis, but it’s a very simplistic [in] structure. The idea was to make something so primal within Los Angeles, which is this city so full of delusion and tricks, you’d think you wouldn’t be able to take advantage of it. But to the contrary, you make it the exact opposite.

Nicholas Winding Refn 

filmmakermagazine

 
See Also:
The Pusher Trilogy.
The Believer.
Two Lane Blacktop.
To Live and Die in L.A.
Miami Vice.
 
Highs:
The opening heist, a master class in direction and editing.
The sweet synth pop.
The purple credits.
Albert Brooks as one of the scariest wiseguys ever.
The iconic scorpion jacket.
That kiss.
       

Lows:
The plot's a little familiar.
Takes its time a little too much?
Did they just blow off Christina Hendricks's head? What a waste.
 
Rating: 5 Stars
 
Sum it up:
What Nicholos Refn and Gosling have created is something truly special and that is unfortunately a rare commodity in mainstream movie-making. 'Drive' is the real deal a provocative instant classic, that I can't recommend enough, take it for a ride.

      

  Trailer: