Drive

 Drive (from Weird and Wonderful II: Fifty More Cult Films by George Hughes, available from www.freefall-productions.com) 

2011 / US / 100 minutes

“A lot of guys mess around with married women. But you’re the only one I know who robs a joint to pay back the husband.”

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn / Screenplay: Hossein Amini, based on the novel by James Sallis / Director of Photography: Newton Thomas Sigel / Music: Cliff Martinez / Production: Michel Litvak, John Palermo, Marc Platt, Gigi Pritzker and Adam Siegel for Bold Films / Cast: Ryan Gosling (Driver), Carey Mulligan (Irene), Bryan Cranston (Shannon), Albert Brooks (Bernie Rose), Oscar Isaac (Standard), Christina Hendricks (Blanche), Ron Perlman (Nino), Kaden Leos (Benicio).

The protagonist of Nicolas Winding Refn’s outstanding contemporary but undeniably ’80’s- flavoured Neo Noir thriller Drive never gets a name. “Driver” (Ryan Gosling) is a mechanic and film stuntman by day but at night he works as a getaway driver for hire. With no interest in the heists or connection to the criminals committing them, he’s a detached, almost silent and completely independent loner.

    Living by himself in a small Los Angeles apartment and only ever conversing with his boss Shannon (Bryan Cranston), Driver slowly begins to build up a friendship with his neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her young son, Benicio (Kaden Leos). When Irene’s husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) is released from prison and comes home, Driver agrees to help him pull off an armed robbery in order to repay a “Protection” debt he owes from his time inside.

   However, Standard is shot dead during the robbery. Driver is able to escape but discovers that the job was a set up engineered by local gangsters Bernie (Albert Brooks) and Nino (Ron Perlman), who are also connected to Shannon through some past business deals. But Driver remains determined to protect Irene and Benicio and takes the fight back to the underworld…

   Drive is hugely influenced by the likes of Walter Hill’s The Driver (1978), Michael Mann’s Thief (1981) and William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. (1985). It’s deliberately retro look and soundtrack combine with an intense and immersive character study centred around Gosling’s performance as an almost completely internalised antihero (incidentally, I’d attempted all the same stuff with my first short, The Mover (2005) years earlier but only about ten people ever saw that).

   Adapted from a novel by James Sallis, Drive was initially environed as a Fast and the Furious- style pure actioner much more interested in car chases and stunt work than the characters (at one point Neil Marshall had been attached to direct). But when Gosling came on board, he chose Refn as the director.

   Refn had done well in his native Denmark with Pusher (1996) and its sequels and had had a wobbly but interesting start to his international career with the likes of Bronson (2008) and Valhalla Rising (2009) before taking on Drive. Refn deliberately avoided watching The Driver before beginning production (Hill’s film had been an influence on Sallis but Refn had never seen it) and Drive ended up properly putting him on the Hollywood map, to be swiftly followed up by the equally impressive Only God Forgives in 2013 and The Neon Demon in 2016.

   Gosling would later take the lead in Only God Forgives and eventually go on to co- star with Harrison Ford in Blade Runner 2049 (2017) but it was the role of Driver that made him a major leading man. The character has been compared to Lisbeth Salander for his social awkwardness and sudden violent outbursts and, like Salander, it’s been suggested that Driver is possibly somewhere on the autistic spectrum given his exceptional skill in his area of interest.

   But the character strongly hints at childhood abuse / trauma survival too, especially given his almost father and son- like relationship with Shannon and his need to protect Benicio. As to Driver’s career choices, dress sense and general attitude, Gosling’s interpretation was that he was a man living in a film playing out in his own head.

   “In trying to figure out who would do something like this, the only way to make sense of it is that this is a guy that’s seen too many movies and he’s started to confuse his life for a film” Gosling said in 2012, “He’s lost in the mythology of Hollywood and he’s become an amalgamation of all the characters that he admires”.

   Driver would obviously be surrounded by such influences in his day job and the character in the novel certainly owes a lot to an older generation of “Strong, silent types” played by Clint Eastwood and Steve McQueen. Sallis wrote a sequel, Driven, that was published shortly after the film’s release and it’s still hoped that Refn and Gosling will one day reunite to adapt it.