Drive (Nichols Winding Refn, 2011)

Reviewed by Richard Feilden.  Viewed at Plaza Cinemas 14, Oxnard
 I’m struggling to write this review, and I think I know why.  I need to get to the final line and just say ‘watch this film’.  I also want to create something as beautiful as this film is at times, as violently forceful as it is at others.  The ‘need’ is easy to fulfill – Watch This Film.  There, done.  The ‘want’ is harder.  I’ll do my best.

Drive opens with a simple heist.  Two masked men raid a car-stereo warehouse within the five minutes allotted to them by their unmasked, but equally anonymous driver.  They then engage in a staccato car chase, spending as much time silently hiding in the shadows as they do screaming through intersections to a V8 bellow.  They dive into a car park, the car is abandoned, and they melt away.  And that is Drive: total minimalism and dime-turn changes of pace.

Ryan Gosling is the nameless Driver whose skill with cars sees him working in a garage, performing stunts on a Hollywood set, and executing flawless getaways, and it’s his performance which will likely get the most attention in the film.  For the first half of the film Gosling’s Driver exists in a state of almost Zen like calm.  You begin to question whether you are seeing anything at all, or whether you’re simply projecting the emotion you think he should be expressing onto his face.  It is as though he has walked straight out of a Lev Kuleshov experiment (conducted in the 1910s, viewers claimed to see great emotion on the face of an actor who was edited in next to a variety of scenes, when in fact his expression remained neutral throughout) and into an action movie.  As his world begins to crumble, the mask begins to crack.  Gosling carries out this gradual process superbly, the moments of expression laboring to the surface like bubbles in a steaming mud bog.  When emotions do finally explode across the surface of his face, it is with a terrifying violence, but almost instantly he is calm again.  I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see him get Oscar attention.  With more reserved acting on the way later in the year from Gary Oldman in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the awards season might be the most subtle it has been for years!

The visuals of the film are also worthy of high praise.  They shift in tone with the Driver’s emotional state – harsh and brutal when he is, awash in rich golden tones and glorious reflections in his car’s windows when he is at one with the world.  Cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel (X-Men, The Usual Suspects) has created a masterpiece.  Equally impressive is the film’s sound.  It knows exactly when to sink into total silence, and when to erupt.  From awkward stumbling conversations, through the car engine volume matching it’s driver’s mood, to the 80s synth-stylings on the soundtrack, it doesn’t miss a step.

The only failing of the film, and the main thing it shares with its action siblings, is its use of female characters.  ‘Use’ is the right word, as the most function they have is to propel the story from one level to another.  Carey Mulligan gets to play the ‘Madonna’ role, providing a love interest to shake the driver from his controlled life, but beyond sparking their refreshingly chaste relationship simply by her presence, she has no agency within the film.  She simply is.  Christina Hendricks joins the film for a brief role as a sleazy thief, but she does what she’s told by the men-folk and nothing more.  Beyond those two characters the only women on display are quite literally on-display – topless dancers in a strip club.  The women are there to be looked at, adored or whored, but nothing more.  In a film as good as this I expect better.

At only 100 minutes long the film has no time for tedious exposition, nor for unnecessary backstory, so you’ll find none here.  If you need to be spoon-fed character motivations then this isn’t the film for you.  If you’re willing to do a little work, and you want to see one the best acted and shot action films I can remember from recent years, you’re in for one hell of a treat.  And at least I managed one of my goals…

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Published:
09.24.11 / 9pm
Category:
Films