Drive
Regal, October 4, 2011
Movie #74 for 2011
This movie made me so sad. It made me wish that violence just wasn’t a thing and that people who made bad (but not necessarily evil) choices had a second shot.
RYAN GOSLING (Ides of March, pictured) plays an unnamed driver for movie stunts and petty robberies. He fancies his neighbor, Irene (CAREY MULLIGAN, An Education) whose husband (OSCAR ISAAC, Body of Lies, Balibo) is about to get out of jail and who owes some bad people. Things start off fine, and then they go to (bloody, messy, brutally violent) shit.
I loved that the action set pieces were car-crunchingly real and suspense filled without a single whip-pan. And I loved that the characters are skillfully and deeply drawn both in HOSSEIN AMINI’s screenplay and through NICOLAS (Pusher trilogy) WINDING REFN’s direction. As well as directing terrific action and actors for nuanced and compelling performances, Refn’s visual poetry is original and beautiful - this is a really good looking film.
There is a lot of graphic violence here (which is usually enough for me to hate a movie), but it is so brutal and ugly that even while I hated it, I was moved by it. It is a clear sign that all is not right with the world.
By the end, though, the escalating violence and brutality was the thing that lingered with me, rather than, as I’d hoped, any thoughts or cares I had for the characters. I left with a bone-deep sadness about the violence in our movies, and in some people’s lives.
