Drive: One Man's Triumph over Autism

Rating: Null/10 (1 October 2011)

Ryan Gosling's character as the Driver is generally fairly soft-spoken. At first, I thought this was supposed to show that he was a calm, cool, level-headed character, but as the movie progressed I began to suspect that he simply had a learning disability. Whenever something exciting, interesting, important, unimportant, dull, or totally irrelevant is happening on screen, the Driver is there to stare slightly to the left of it for 30-40 seconds. I think the movie is really about overcoming his delusion that he possesses the ability of pyrokinesis, because anytime he encounters another human being, he appears to be trying to stare at them until they burst into flames. Early in the movie, he meets a young mother and her son living in the apartment next to his. When he and the mother chat, he frequently uses the opportunity to stare awkwardly directly at her son. Invited over for dinner? Stare at the table leg. Watching TV with your neighbor's son? Stare at the wall above the TV while making a face that was probably supposed to be a smile, but looks more like you just forgot to close your mouth. The Driver appears to have two emotions: "none" and "dead-eyed rapist smile." Aside from some action in the first 5-10 minutes, the first half of the movie seems to consist solely of:
1. The Driver staring, unblinking, into space for several minutes at a time, occasionally stopping to turn a few degrees and stare in another direction
2. The Driver either taking several seconds to produce a one word response or not responding at all when someone talks to him
3. The Driver silently coasting around the city at 15mph going nowhere in particular listening to synthpop
In fact, the soundtrack and font used for the opening credits had me convinced that the movie took place in the 80's until 30 minutes in when one character mentioned being a movie producer "in the 80's."
To give credit where credit is due, in the second half of the movie (about 50 minutes in), the Driver apparently makes a breakthrough with his disorder and starts engaging in conversations that span several sentences and expressing multiple emotions (there's still a lot of staring, though). I actually found this part of the movie to be very tense and interesting in line with most of the other reviews I've read. Unless you like laughing at the mentally handicapped, however, I would advise fast-forwarding through the first half of the movie.