{"id":15862,"date":"2011-09-24T21:46:33","date_gmt":"2011-09-25T05:46:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=15862"},"modified":"2011-09-24T21:46:33","modified_gmt":"2011-09-25T05:46:33","slug":"drive-nichols-winding-refn-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=15862","title":{"rendered":"Drive (Nichols Winding Refn, 2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden<\/a>. \u00a0Viewed at Plaza Cinemas 14, Oxnard
\n\"\"\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0struggling to write this review, and I think I know why.\u00a0 I need<\/em> to get to the final line and just say \u2018watch this film\u2019.\u00a0 I also want<\/em> to create something as beautiful as this film is at times, as violently forceful as it is at others.\u00a0 The \u2018need\u2019 is easy to fulfill \u2013 Watch This Film.\u00a0 There, done.\u00a0 The \u2018want\u2019 is harder.\u00a0 I\u2019ll do my best.<\/p>\n

Drive<\/a> opens with a simple heist.\u00a0 Two masked men raid a car-stereo warehouse within the five minutes allotted to them by their unmasked, but equally anonymous driver.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 They dive into a car park, the car is abandoned, and they melt away.\u00a0 And that is Drive: total minimalism and dime-turn changes of pace.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s his performance which will likely get the most attention in the film.\u00a0 For the first half of the film Gosling\u2019s Driver exists in a state of almost Zen like calm.\u00a0 You begin to question whether you are seeing anything at all, or whether you\u2019re simply projecting the emotion you think he should be expressing onto his face.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 As his world begins to crumble, the mask begins to crack.\u00a0 Gosling carries out this gradual process superbly, the moments of expression laboring to the surface like bubbles in a steaming mud bog.\u00a0 When emotions do finally explode across the surface of his face, it is with a terrifying violence, but almost instantly he is calm again.\u00a0 I certainly wouldn\u2019t be surprised to see him get Oscar attention.\u00a0 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!<\/p>\n

The visuals of the film are also worthy of high praise.\u00a0 They shift in tone with the Driver\u2019s emotional state \u2013 harsh and brutal when he is, awash in rich golden tones and glorious reflections in his car\u2019s windows when he is at one with the world.\u00a0 Cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel (X-Men, The Usual Suspects) has created a masterpiece.\u00a0 Equally impressive is the film\u2019s sound.\u00a0 It knows exactly when to sink into total silence, and when to erupt.\u00a0 From awkward stumbling conversations, through the car engine volume matching it\u2019s driver\u2019s mood, to the 80s synth-stylings on the soundtrack, it doesn\u2019t miss a step.<\/p>\n

The only failing of the film, and the main thing it shares with its action siblings, is its use of female characters.\u00a0 \u2018Use\u2019 is the right word, as the most function they have is to propel the story from one level to another.\u00a0 Carey Mulligan gets to play the \u2018Madonna\u2019 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.\u00a0 She simply is.\u00a0 Christina Hendricks joins the film for a brief role as a sleazy thief, but she does what she\u2019s told by the men-folk and nothing more.\u00a0 Beyond those two characters the only women on display are quite literally on-display \u2013 topless dancers in a strip club.\u00a0 The women are there to be looked at, adored or whored, but nothing more.\u00a0 In a film as good as this I expect better.<\/p>\n

At only 100 minutes long the film has no time for tedious exposition, nor for unnecessary backstory, so you\u2019ll find none here.\u00a0 If you need to be spoon-fed character motivations then this isn\u2019t the film for you.\u00a0 If you\u2019re 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\u2019re in for one hell of a treat.\u00a0 And at least I managed one of my goals\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden. \u00a0Viewed at Plaza Cinemas 14, Oxnard \u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0struggling to write this review, and I think I know why.\u00a0 I need to get to the final line and just say \u2018watch this film\u2019.\u00a0 I also want to create something as beautiful as this film is at times, as violently forceful as it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15862\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}