I'm gonna show you where it's dark, but have no fear

Rating: 10/10 (11 February 2015)

I have met this guy before. He was Dustin Hoffman's Max Dembo in "Straight Time", Jean Reno's "Leon", Alain Delon's Jef Costello in "Le Samourai", Martin Sheen's Kit in "Bad Lands", obviously Ryan O'Neal's "Driver", and even François Leterrier's Fontaine in "A Man Escaped". And he was, of course, the mysterious stranger in many noir, western or westernish movies.
He is a man followed closely by a strange shadow, a dark and dangerous one, that mostly affects the people he cares about. But the strangest thing about this man is that he is in synch with his fate. He does recognize the forces that pull him in places he wouldn't want to go, or shouldn't want to go, but he does not really rebel against them, mock them, use them for revenge or desperately bash his head against the walls they raise around him. If he happens to find a breach in those walls he'll walk out, if not he'll just keep them as a part of his being.
There is a bittersweet innocence about this man. It's not the innocence of the naive hero who finds himself (or herself) pulled in a vile scheme beyond their comprehension, only to get themselves either destroyed or embittered and hellbent on revenge. Nor the serenity of the savvy criminal who willingly sold their soul to rule mercifully in hell. The man I'm talking about has a kind of wild innocence: he just happens to have been born a predator (now Jude Law's Steven from "The Wisdom of Crocodiles springs to mind").
Ryan Gosling's Driver starts off showing just the tiniest shadow of his scorpion stinger: he's the escape driver of two criminals during a heist. All professional and uninvolved, he just drives. We don't even end up knowing why he does it - he hardly needs the money. Could be simply the thrill of the chase, being able to escape police, a purpose to drive, as good as any other, as long as he doesn't have to stay too long in his empty apartment, briefly entered and quickly left again during a beat of the intro credits.
In the beginning, he looks like an ocean diver. He does not really seem to belong in the colorful, dirty, strident, perverse night of the electric city, although he knows it by heart. He seems to belong on the shore, where he can breathe air, meet human people, have friends and fall in love - but still he dives over and over again, roaming the lively and dirty ocean from behind the windows of his car, that almost act like fourth walls between him and the rest of the world - starting with the heist in the beginning of the movie. He's out there, but with his breathing and protection equipment at hand.
And then we see him on the shore, and he's quiet, direct, cautious, then his face opens up in midsummer sunny smiles when he falls for a girl - in spite of all his caution - and we get to see the human, vulnerable layer behind the poker face, leather gloves, screeching tires and ticking clocks. There is some great direction and acting at work, because our ultra low-key hero actually manages to transmit the tiniest thought and hesitation - we see his aloofness turn to interest through an almost imperceptible lag in stride, focus of his eyes somewhere behind the camera, we see his decision processes through a simple turn of the head or the smallest frown, and most of this before we even get to see what is causing him to break the pace. Later on, his face simply starts to beam, and we know that he saw her, and sure enough, there she is, right behind us. We can see the world reflected in him before we see the world, and that's so good that I can't get enough of it.
And this is all fine and dandy, until he has to dive again. Deeper. Going for that last heist that obviously goes wrong. But then something happens: we slowly come to understand that he was never a creature of land and sun. He belonged to the frantic, neon ocean. That's where he came from when he arrived in our story, and that's where he vanished again in the end.
Well, I think that it's pretty obvious that I loved this movie. And not just for the main character, but also for the vivid world around him, populated by typical noir archetypes dressed up as casual humans - the innocent blonde femme fatale, the dark vulnerable and aggressive husband who returns from jail and darkens the horison, the sweet but mildly treacherous and powerless guardian angel (Shannon), the all-powerful fiend bound to the rules of hell, yet merciful and reasonable (Bernie), the aggressive ugly wild card that triggers the catastrophe (Nino). I loved the music that infused everything with a meaning and a will, the sudden splatter of violence and gore when the Driver's inner beast was triggered into motion, the cling of the elevator doors sealing him outside her universe, under the surface of his ocean.
It's not that everything worked - for instance, the story of the scorpion and the frog was useless. But most of it worked big time, and it went straight under my skin. It's the first time I have rated a movie with 10 in a long time (last two 10s were "Lawrence of Arabia" and "In Bruges", more than one year ago).