Drive

DRIVE is seductive. I can imagine it playing at Cannes to its warm responses, foreigners jubilating over the seductive American action movie that has been so perpetually hinted at, but never delivered. I can see why it won best direction at Cannes as well. It is, to be sure, very well directed, but past that truth, the seductiveness of an American 21st century feature is more appealing. Shot in an old fashioned manner, and possessing a lot of the silences of the 70's and 80's, this is at heart, however, a film very much of the 21st century. First, in tone, in color (wonderfully so), DRIVE is oblique and melancholy, paying tribute to Michael Mann, but also a lot like Fincher's SOCIAL NETWORK in its use of technology (and being not fearful of that medium).
Can ROSS DRESS FOR LESS look good in a picture? So often the commercial strips of towns seems so unartful and ugly, but here, in DRIVE, director Nicolas Winding Refn uses these 21st century marks to accentuate his frame. ROSS DRESS FOR LESS is very blue, so he puts it against black, red, tan colors, a pallid frame. This is a great cinematic gesture.
Past this even, Refn's hero, known only as The Driver is possessed cleanly and perfectly by Ryan Gosling, who emits a certain cool in DRIVE unlike any other role of his. There is some heart, but an existential mind at work: a brutality and a manner-of-fact way of looking at things. Very much like the great NIGHT MOVES, Gosling's driver doesn't belong in this world. He sparks up a relationship with tender Carey Mulligan and her son. The father is in jail for unknown reasons (a lot like how everything about the Driver is unknown; he strolls into places, working at a garage for Brian Cranston's crippled father figure, working as a stunt driver for films, and by night: acting as the getaway car driver for heists). It is even appropriate that that seemingly important bit of knowledge was stored away in parentheses, the driver and his motives are what matter. The father is in trouble, and by association, so are his child and wife. The driver coolly steps in to assist, and everything goes to hell, bringing in a cast of ugly, evil creatures.
This is no apologetic film though: The Driver is existentially who he is and he does things the way he wants them to. Artistically, DRIVE is great, and as a symbol of what American seduction should be, it is likewise, great.
Drive: ★★★★