Now here's a Movie, with a capital "M." Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive is a dark, bleak film that calls back to an era when Hollywood wasn't afraid to take it slow and develop things like mood and tone. The entire film feels like it was transplanted from the late days of the Hollywood New Wave. It follows an unnamed driver played by Ryan Gosling who is a stuntman slash mechanic by day and getaway driver by night. He handles his job, and his life in general, with an eery, almost zen-like calm. Again and again my mind drifted to Alain Delon's performance in Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï. And just like Delon, Gosling's character gets into trouble because of his association with a young woman. In this case, it isn't a beautiful nightclub singer, but a single mom with a husband in prison. He gets involved with a robbery in order to pay back her husband's protection debt accrued while in prison. Of course, the robbery goes terribly, terribly wrong. It is up to the Driver to figure out how to get himself, and the single mother's family, out of trouble for good. This is a stunning, hypnotic film. The dialogue is terse and stylized, yet realistic enough that we can imagine ourselves delivering the lines in similar situations. Gosling's performance is a revelation. If this movie came out in the 70s, he would have been elevated to a place of super-stardom alongside Eastwood, Bronson, and McQueen. I learned that this film won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival. I'm thrilled that it didn't leave empty-handed. Hollywood needs to learn that good things CAN happen when they focus not on explosions and special effects, but story and characters.
8/10
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