An art-house and gritty genre reconciliation that takes you on a blood-splattered ride through an LA fairyland.

Rating: 10/10 (2 March 2015)

In re-watching this film for the first time in three years, I think what helped turn the key in this slick retro engine and build a momentum where I didn't feel there was one before, is my understanding of Ryan Gosling's performance. I had expected a Tarantino exercise in verbosity of pop culture shenanigans and quick wit laced with escalating levels of violence, what I instead got was some love story in an idiosyncratic world that was punctuated with endless silences where the people felt like marionettes in stasis, and all of this carried by a glum and solidarity unnamed protagonist who seemed to me like an anthropomorphic equivalent of the toothpicks he was so fond of. But of course, one does not forget Drive.
Whether it's the intense, eye-lid stapling opening sequence that burns itself in your mind, in which the journey through the dark neon-tinged streets under the looming presence of the cityscape is both furiously thrilling - as we sit passenger, both accomplice and overwhelmed audience in this high-speed pursuit whilst the police scanner and sports coverage on the radio duets and becomes a countdown and a challenge - and a smooth and casual ride in the calmed presence of our Driver, Ryan Gosling, as he effortlessly navigates us through this cultural labyrinth, the retro ambiance of the soundtrack and the city which creates a timeless quality which mythologises Los Angeles as some cinematic world, or maybe just the Driver himself, Drive is the antithesis of a forgettable movie.
Until re-watching this, Gosling was still completely an enigma to me. Granted I haven't seen any of his other works, and as far as I'm aware this performance doesn't exactly encapsulate the man, he does appear to have been working in a versatile selection of films for a while now, but there was always something I felt whenever I would see him in picture or in trailer, that felt a little lacking. Maybe it's those impenetrable eyes. But it must be my greater cinematic understanding since first watching this film, because I realise now that an actor can convey just as much through physicality, expression and general demeanour as they can through dialogue. And Gosling excels in this. His Driver, a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway one, seems to be a descendant in the long line of silent heroes, another creation of the Hollywood mythos that favours actions over words. And this is something fascinating that this film creates, as it is a clearly very cine-literate piece, far more so than me, in that it plays between the fiction of its setting and the actual real emotion of its people. The Driver is caught somewhere between some being a confused young man without precise direction and a lovelorn white-knight that continues the legacy of our filmic heroes. There are many why's that you could throw at this character and his world, but I think it's important to accept that he is a product of this place, and in falling in love with his beautiful and dainty and reticent neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan) and subsequently in finding himself taking responsibility for her and her son, he is fulfilling the necessary journey as a protector, or hero, because that is all he understands. Both the most grandiose and intimate moments come from their all-to- brief time together; in one triumphant sequence that feels like we're gliding along the golden light of a dream, as the synth-y triumph of 'Real Hero' plays, The Driver takes Irene and her son out on to the LA riverbed, and they soar along existing outside of any reality but their own. The silences between these characters, like when the son stares up at the driver, in wonder and adoration, challenging him to a no-blink contest, and when he shares the company of Irene, nothing necessarily needs to be said, because in the silences that they cultivate and share they are at peace in the mystery of each other. He is a man without a past; she is a woman who seems to maintain an emotional composure despite her difficult domestic situation with a husband in jail.
The husband who is released from jail and brings with him criminal residual that he cannot escape just as these characters are bonding seems like a convenient catalyst for the plot, but the film takes delight in these genre conventions and entrapping the Driver in this pre-determined cinematic journey. When Irene's husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) who seems relatively sincere about making an honest lifestyle yet is still caught up in crime, there is only one course of action we know the Driver can take.
The film loves its contrasts and contradictions. The Driver never carries a gun, a principle that seems weirdly pacifist, but then we learn he favours far more personal resolutions. When Christina Hendricks fails to answer his question on whether she set him up on their heist, he slaps her, pins her to the bed, and all intimidation and all power is achieved through one pointed finger. He points it furiously at her, like a gun, and it seems to be a conduit for all his anger and heroism. When things are complicated further, later on in the film, he and Irene share a tender-most-probably-good-bye-kiss in an elevator they share with a man the Driver knows he is going to have to immediately kill, Irene still present. This valiant white knight will go to psychotic levels to protect innocence, and it's an irony that the world enforces. All this is without even mentioning the talents of Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman, their characters each a little more dubious than the next. Ultimately they each serve bloody purpose in this offbeat LA mythological genre love odyssey that within so little time has found a place as an iconic film, something it will not fail to maintain because it exists in the beating heart of cinema itself.