Baby Driver

Theatrical release poster

**Baby Driver** is a 2017 action film written and directed by Edgar Wright. It stars Ansel Elgort as a getaway driver seeking freedom from a life of crime with his girlfriend Debora (Lily James). Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm, Eiza González, Jamie Foxx, and Jon Bernthal appear in supporting roles. Eric Fellner and his Working Title Films partner Tim Bevan produced Baby Driver in association with Big Talk Productions' Nira Park. Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox handled commercial distribution of the film. Baby Driver was financed through a co-production pact between Universal, Fox and MRC and tax subsidies from the Georgia state government.

Wright developed Baby Driver for over two decades. He devised the idea while in his youth, and his early directing experience further shaped his ambitions for Baby Driver. Originally based in Los Angeles, Wright revised the film's setting to Atlanta, integrating the city's ethos into an important storytelling device. Principal photography took place in Atlanta over four months, from February to May 2016. Production involved the planning of meticulously coordinated stunts, choreography, and in-camera shooting. Critics have examined Baby Driver's subject matter in thematic studies of the film, with emphasis on its use of color symbolism and focus on Baby's evolving morality.

Baby Driver premiered at the South by Southwest festival on March 11, 2017. It was released in North America and the UK on June 28. It was well received by the media for its craftsmanship and style, though the characterization and screenwriting drew some criticism. The National Board of Review selected Baby Driver as one of the top films of the year. It earned $226 million globally, bolstered by positive word-of-mouth support and flagging interest in blockbuster franchises. Baby Driver was nominated for numerous awards, including three Academy Awards, two BAFTA Film Awards (with a win for Editing), two Critics' Choice Awards (again, with a win for Editing), and a Golden Globe Award, and won several other honors, chiefly for technical achievement. The success of Baby Driver increased studio interest in producing a sequel.

## Plot

Baby is a getaway driver in Atlanta. As a child, he survived a car crash that killed his parents and left him with tinnitus. He finds catharsis in music, typically using iPods to soothe his tinnitus.

Baby ferries crews of robbers assembled by criminal mastermind Doc as compensation for stealing a car containing Doc's stolen goods. Between jobs, he remixes snippets of conversations he records and cares for his deaf foster father, Joseph. He meets a waitress named Debora, and they start dating.

Baby's next robbery goes awry after an armed military bystander chases them down, but Baby evades him and the police. Having paid his debt, Baby quits his life of crime and starts delivering pizzas. Doc interrupts Baby's date with Debora and insists he join a post office heist, threatening to hurt Debora and Joseph should he refuse.

The crew consists of easygoing Buddy, his sharpshooter wife Darling, and trigger-happy Bats, who immediately dislikes Baby. When the team attempts to purchase illegal firearms, Bats recognizes one of the dealers as a covert operative and opens fire. They kill most of the dealers.

Afterward, Bats makes Baby stop at Debora's diner, unaware of their romance. Baby, aware of Bats's homicidal habit, prevents him from killing her to avoid paying. Doc is furious, revealing that the dealers were corrupt cops on his payroll. He decides to cancel the heist, but the crew overrule him.

Baby attempts to slip away late that night, hoping to take Debora and leave Atlanta, but he is stopped by Buddy and Bats, who have discovered his recordings and believe he is an informant. Baby convinces them and Doc of his innocence by playing them a tape of one of his remixes.

During the heist, Bats kills a security guard. Disgusted, Baby refuses to drive away, causing Bats to hit him. Baby rams the car into some rebar that impales Bats, killing him; Baby, Buddy, and Darling flee on foot. When Darling is killed in a shootout with police, Buddy blames Baby for her death and vows to kill him.

Baby steals a car and flees to his apartment. After leaving Joseph at an assisted living home with his heist earnings, he rushes to get Debora at the diner, where he finds Buddy waiting for him. Baby shoots him and flees with Debora as police swarm the restaurant.

Back at the safe house, Doc initially refuses to let Baby take back one of his tapes, even though it only contains his mother singing, but relents when Debora arrives to console Baby. Doc supplies the couple with cash and an escape route out of the country, saying he was also in love once.

The police who survived the arms deal confront Baby, Debora and Doc in the parking garage, and Doc kills them all. Buddy then arrives and kills Doc, and a cat-and-mouse game ensues until Buddy has Baby at his mercy. He fires a gun next to each of Baby's ears, temporarily deafening him, before Debora hits Buddy with a crowbar. Baby shoots Buddy in the leg, who then falls to his death. Debora flees the scene with Baby.

The next day, they encounter a police roadblock, and he decides to surrender. At his trial, Joseph, Debora, and other people affected by his crimes testify in Baby's defense, citing his acts of compassion and mercy. He is sentenced to 25 years in prison, subject to a parole hearing after five years. Debora stays in contact with Baby during his incarceration, and she discovers that his real name is Miles.

In the final scene, Baby closes his eyes while fixing a Route 66 postcard to his cell mirror. In a dreamlike, black-and-white shot, the prison gates open on the day of his release, and Debora is waiting outside with a vintage car. The shot transitions to full color before Baby and Debora embrace.

## Cast

* Ansel Elgort as Miles 'Baby': An on-call criminal getaway driver with an intense passion for music. Elgort regarded the character as an innocent "younger than his years, deep down". Edgar Wright and the producers at Working Title Films began contemplating the lead role well before they obtained funding for *Baby Driver*. Elgort, John Boyega, and Logan Lerman were among a raft of potential candidates considered for star billing. Elgort auditioned for the part because he found the screenplay compelling. He auditioned several times, but was hired based on a taped audition where he lip synced and danced to the Commodores' 1977 single "Easy". Wright was so impressed that the song was added to the film's soundtrack. The writer-director explained his selection of Elgort: "There's an element of an old soul in Ansel and that was something I thought connected with what I had already written."
	+ Hudson Meek as Young Baby
* Lily James as Debora: A waitress employed at Bo's Diner who becomes Baby's love interest. Emma Stone was an early candidate for the role during development.
* Kevin Spacey as 'Doc': The mysterious kingpin of an Atlanta-based crime syndicate. Spacey's involvement in *Baby Driver* was formally announced in the press in November 2015.
* Jon Hamm as Jason 'Buddy' van Horn: A laidback Wall Street banker-turned-thief who was brought into the criminal underworld by a drug habit. His impulsive decisions are the result of a mid-life crisis. Wright envisioned Buddy as a strong, suave, handsome character à la Steve McQueen in *The Getaway* (1972) and George Clooney in *Out of Sight* (1998), yet much more sinister. Hamm is the only actor in *Baby Driver* whose character was written specifically for them, as Wright is a longtime friend and fan of his. The two men first met at a *Saturday Night Live* afterparty in 2008. Hamm took part in a table read several years before *Baby Driver* was commissioned by a studio.
* Eiza González as Monica 'Darling' Costello: Buddy's young, vivacious wife and the only woman in Doc's heist crew. She and Buddy form an intensely intimate, Bonnie and Clyde-esque pairing. Describing her as a vapid "crook space-cadet woman who has no attachment to reality", the actress joined the production in December 2015.
* Jamie Foxx as Leon 'Bats' Jefferson III: Doc's particularly sadistic, ruthless henchman, who has little regard for the people in his way. Foxx was a casting choice recommended to Wright, although he had reservations and felt the actor would not be enthusiastic about a supporting role. Foxx was fascinated with the film's artistic direction, however, and joined the project thanks to the support of Quentin Tarantino. He modeled Bats after a longtime friend he first met at a Los Angeles comedy club in his youth.
* Jon Bernthal as Griffin 'Griff': One of Doc's thugs responsible for the security of his heist crew. Bernthal believed criminals were too often stereotyped as incompetent in news media. Therefore, to prepare for his role, the actor consulted with real-life career criminals to get a better grasp on his character and the inner workings of organized crime. He said in an interview, "There's your idiots who hold up a place and get caught because they leave their wallet there, but there's mastermind criminals and they all come in different shapes and sizes and different levels of intellect. I think there are people with real talent and people who take it enormously seriously, and those are the kinds of people I talked to."
* CJ Jones as Joe: Baby's foster father, who is deaf and a wheelchair user. Casting director Francine Maisler was tasked with hiring a suitable actor to play Joseph. Though Jones was significantly younger than the role called for, he was hired from a handful of prospective actors, most of whom were not deaf. Jones opted not to work with an on-set interpreter until later in production. He also helped Elgort hone his sign language (ASL) with an on-set tutor.

Other cast members include Flea as Eddie 'No Nose', Lanny Joon as JD, Sky Ferreira as Baby's biological mother (an aspiring singer), Lance Palmer as Baby's biological father (an abusive alcoholic), Big Boi and Killer Mike as restaurant patrons, Paul Williams as 'The Butcher', and Jon Spencer as a prison guard. Noel Fielding and Nick Frost have cameos through archive footage on Baby's TV, appearing in the music video for Mint Royale's "Blue Song" (directed by Wright), in which Fielding played an archetypal version of Baby.