A Cult Classic for Good Reason

Rating: 10/10 (7 July 2018)

Drive is one of those movies where, if you know the characters, you know the outcome - not because it's predicable, but because it's Biblical. It's a study in character, cause and effect.
The Driver (Ryan Gosling) is a quiet loner, in the apartment down the hall. He doesn't say much (not even his real name). Maybe that's because still waters run deep. Maybe it's because he's living two lives - one as a Hollywood stunt driver and one as a getaway driver for jobs handed to him by Shannon (Bryan Cranston), who works for Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks). Next to his brother, Nino (Ron Perlman), Bernie is practically civilized for a gangster. Then again, if he were everything he seems to be, he wouldn't be a gangster.
You know that phrase, "Get a life?" The Driver gets one when he notices pretty neighbor and single mom, Irene (Carey Mulligan). She's quiet, too, and lonely, what with her husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac) stuck in prison. There's a quiet chemistry between these two that could slice through butter, reminding me of how nice it is when movie people don't tell you everything that's going through their mind every second they're on screen. There's a sense that if you let it, these three would find a way to fill the gaps in their lives.
But then Standard gets out of prison, and the dominoes start falling, not necessarily in the directions you expected but with the logic and fatality of a Presbyterian sermon. What's great about this film is that everybody does what they're inclined to do, for reasons that are compelling to who they are and what they want - in the face of what you might predict looking down upon the maze of their lives. They don't see the maze, just the path before them. Each character is firmly committed to it. My mom used to say, "We can't win for losing." Maybe there's a reason for that.
I love this movie. The performances in it are first rate. There isn't a bad scene. My only regret is that I can't go back in time and see it again for the "first" time. It holds up really well. It's one of those movies where, if you catch it on cable, you stop what you're doing. "I just want to watch this scene." If you're not careful, you'll end up watching the rest of the movie because it's compelling.
And maybe that's what's so compelling about this film. Yes, we get the pun. "Drive" is about a driver, who drives by day and drives by night. We all have our inner and outer drives. But every character in this film is animated by a hidden drive - whether it's to make money, please others, have a normal life, live in peace or be, as the song says, "a real human being, and a real hero."
Film fans will recognize the similarities between this film and the James Caan classic, "Thief." There's an early scene, involving a watch, where you think this is going to be Jason Statham in The Transporter, with a virtuoso driver who lives by a Caan-like personal code. But to its credit, Gosling's character is less governed by his head than his heart. This is not a movie about people who think, let alone think it all through before they act. It's a film about people who feel, whether they're acting on fear, lust, anger or love.