Review: The Self Possession of "Drive"

There's 100,000 streets. You don't need to know the route."

The Driver is alone in a hotel room. Looking out over the city at night, negotiating on a cel phone he'll abandon immediately. We never learn his name. We don't need to know it.

His face is Ryan Gosling's, but even so it's a less familiar landscape than you'd think. With Drive, the actor erases any doubts (were there any?) that he's the most exciting young movie star on this side of the Atlantic. For the driver, his face has taken on a new mask-like stillness which twice in Nicolas Winding Refn's brilliant new movie, is covered (redundantly) by an actual mask. There is no knowing this driver; if we were given his name we'd forget it anyway or doubt its authenticity. Even the underscore, a brilliantly retro synth score, that memorably features Kavinksy's "Nightcall" just as we're being introduced keeps us at a certain remove, a hypnotized female voice singing "There's something inside you. It's hard to explain." Indeed.

To summarize the plot of Drive would immediately reduce it to a standard nihilistic noir or crime drama. If you must know -- though I hope you've already seen it because it's best seen cold without knowing the following details -- the driver is a stunt driver for the movies and also a mechanic and also quite willing to be your getaway for crimes. He won't ask questions and you shouldn't either. He just drives. His mechanic boss Shannon (Bryan Cranston, excellent) and his quiet neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan, excellent) and her child Benico (Kaden Leos, also excellent... you'll be sensing a trend here) are the three people in his life that he seems to care for, despite his dangerously self-possessed aura. In the course of Drive, this walking loner archetype is gradually humanized whether through narrative emotional connections or performance choices. Both the neighbor and the boss have troubled histories including people who are Trouble and the driver's very tight social circle is soon forcibly opened by crowbars, shotguns and handshakes. The cast expands to include a wealthy investor/criminal Bernie (Albert Brooks... seeking Oscar), his mouthy colleague Nino (Ron Perlman, delighted to show off) a lesser criminal Cook (James Biberi) and his associate Blanche (Christina Hendricks, memorably put-out in stilettos), and Irene's ex-con husband with the perfect name of "Standard" (Oscar Isaac, just terrific). Needless to say, shit goes down both in and out of cars. Very violent, exquisitely directed shit goes down. 

To Refn and Gosling's credit, the unknowable driver doesn't stay a mere Embodiment of Something (like, say, Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men) which helps the movie immeasurably. The few times the driver's humanity peaks through, his voice trembling, a flash of fear across his face, or even a moment of tenderness are genuinely unnerving; the untouchable man is touched. Even the stoic loner, who loves only driving and barely speaks, can't escape the violent messy pull of humanity. His choice to dehumanize again, donning the mask a second time, is a genuinely frightening image that I haven't been able to shake since seeing the movie. 

Drive is one of those movies. It makes you think in and of its images. I generally take notes when I watch films though I can't always understand them afterwards, the danger of scribbling in the dark. My notes for Drive... are strange. The standard illegible chicken scratches appear but there are also crude images scribbled in, attempts to capture the movies indelibe compositions, use of color and general mise-en-scene. (I've recreated two of them here for you since my scanner is broken).

I'm not sure why i wrote red all over this one. Stills show that it's more orange.

Drive is just one of those movies, the kind that unfold with such individuality and confidence and sense of possibility that you can almost imagine the celluloid standing up and strutting right past you, knowing full well you're going to turn and look. Yeah, I'm hot shit, it might say, if it weren't so emphatically the strong and silent type. One could argue, as I did with myself on second viewing, that the movie does boast about its own coolness in just this way and too often. If there's something to be said against Drive beyond its nasty nihilism (the extent of the violence is... uneccessary) it's just that. The movie stops in its track a few times and whether or not you're hypnotized (I was absolutely) it's clearly showing off. Let's just say that Nicolas Winding Refn is the most exciting Mad Dane to arrive in the movies since Lars von Trier... and knows it, too.

Though Drive's initial retro impression with the synth score, glistening cityscapes and practically neon hot pink titles immediately is that it's paying homage to the 1980s and Michael Mann, Drive very quickly becomes only its own memorable self. But because it's so emphatically a movie, so possessed by the motion in its pictures  --even its frozen tableaus are alive with suggested movement, promised ugly futures you fear you'll lunge towards without warning -- it can't help but recall the great tradition of cinema's coolest movies.  Leaving the movie the first time (I've already seen it twice) I thought most of Pulp Fiction. Not Pulp Fiction as we know it now -- annoyingly replicated never duplicated -- but Pulp Fiction back when it first took the world by storm; they aren't much alike but for that blast of intoxicating fresh air in the theater. A/A-

Recommended Further Reading
The Film Experience - "People Will Love It Ten Years From Now"
Nick's Flick Picks - a coiled python
Serious Film -"atmosphere. neon glow and moments that hang in the air..."
My New Plaid Pants "Chrissy Hendricks, Stiletto Wobbler" 
In Contention "the finest layer of B-movie grime that time and money can buy" 

Have you seen Drive? If so do sound off in the comments. 

TIFF Award Winners

The list as they came in [thanks to The Lost Boy]

BEST CANADIAN FIRST FEATURE Edwin Boyd, directed by Nathan Morlando (Paolo's review, Amir's review)
BEST CANADIAN FEATURE Monsieur Lazhar, directed by Philippe Falardeau
BEST CANADIAN SHORT FILM Doubles With Slight Pepper by Ian Harnarine
PEOPLE'S CHOICE MIDNIGHT MADNESS The Raid, directed by Gareth Huw Evans
PEOPLE'S CHOICE DOCUMENTARY The Island President by Jon Shenk
INTERNATIONAL CRITICS SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS The First Man, directed by Gianni Amelio
INTERNATIONAL CRITICS DISCOVERY SECTION Avalon directed by Axel Petersen 

And the biggie, the PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD, which often signifies Oscar attention in either Best Picture or Foreign Film categories is WHERE DO WE GO NOW? the musical from Lebanon which is from the director of Caramel. It was recently submitted for Oscar consideration for Best Foreign Language Film.

UPDATE: Here's the international trailer.

It's officially one to watch now, a very likely nominee if past awards are indication. Runners up in this category were Iran's very buzzy marital drama A Separation and Ken Scott's Starbuck. 

TIFF: "Jeff...," "Hysteria", "Take Shelter" and "Amy George."

[Editor's Note: Apologies from Nathaniel, I've been under the weather and Paolo, who has been so dependable at sending capsules and reviews our way, now has a log jam of them. So many movies to discuss. Enjoy. TIFF wraps this weekend. -Nathaniel R]

Paolo here, discovering that HYSTERIA, a film about inventing the vibrator, isn't based on the recent Broadway play "In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play" although they tackle the same subject. However, some scenes here still look like you might see them in a stage play, set in offices of upper middle class Londoners. These are  perfectly designed offices, with the requisite deep trendy colours of today's period films. The character played by the unrecognizable Rupert Everett is an electricity geek. A generator occupies his office, a Rube Goldberg like thing connected to a feather duster. However, protagonist Mortimer Granville (a composite of three actual doctors played by Hugh Dancy) sees something else in this feather duster.

The comedy in the film is repetitive; how many 'strong hands' jokes can one take even if Jonathan Pryce, playing Mortimer's boss Dalrymple, delivers them so capably? Dalrymple's daughter Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal) enters the plot, a welcome break from the 'paroxysms' of Mortimer's clients. Her story line gets dramatic when her East End connections land her in prison but there isn't enough of a struggle to convince us that something bad might truly happen to her. Gyllenhall plays Charlotte with an optimism rarely seen in her darker films. She's also required to speak in a West End English accent alongside real English actors but she's not enough to elevate this film into a genuine crowd pleaser.

HICK, based on Andrea Portes' novel, is a movie set in the middle of nowhere and ends up there, despite the wishes of a thirteen year old girl named Luli (Chloe Moretz). Luli is very knowledgeable of her  provenance, her mother Tammy (Juliette Lewis) giving birth to her in a bar. Her father's no different, the kind of guy who drives into playground monkey bars without hiding the bottle of whiskey in his hand. She decides to run away to Las Vegas even if she's too young to be part of the workforce. The film from this point forward becomes a road movie,  taking place inside cars or at pit stops.

Chloe's child acress 'rite of passage', Take Shelter Oscar buzz, and endless potato boiling after the jump.

Click to read more ...

France Declares War... (Not That Kind).

If France worries about such thing -- which they probably don't given their justifiable pride in their celluloid history -- they'd probably be frustrated by now that that 10th Oscar win for Best Foreign Language Film continues to elude them. It's now been 19 years since they've managed a win (Indochine) in the Oscar category they once owned. Their best shot since then (Amélie) suffered a surprise loss. Their best nominated film in many years (Un Prophete) had the misfortune of arriving in an atypically strong year for the category. Then just last year they missed what most expected was an easy-get nomination for the international hit Of Gods and Men. It all adds up to a strange golden drought given their much-statued history; they've received the most Best Foreign Language Film Nominations in history (36) but Italy still surpasses them in wins (10). 

Valerie Donzelli and Jérémie Elkaïm in "War is Declared"

Oh yes, the news...

France announced this morning that they will submit La Guerre est déclarée (which I've heard translated as both "War is Declared" and "Declaration of War" for international title purposes) for this year's Oscar race. It's a true story medical drama about a couple who fought to save their two year old son from a brain tumor. Here's the interesting angle: the writer/director is the mother Valérie Donzelli of the actual child (who survived) and she and her partner Jérémie Elkaïm are the lead actors, so essentially they've made their own family's biopic even though they've fictionalized it a bit (they have different names in the movie). The title, in case you're wondering, has a double meaning. The family obviously waged a war against the tumor and on the morning of their son's first operation they awoke to news of the Iraq war being launched. 

TFE reader Frédéric who send the news (merci!) says he's seen the film twice already and it only opened two weeks ago in France... though it actually premiered at Cannes. In other words, he really loved it. Here's the trailer.

The film has won many admiring reviews, Variety's among them. They wrote:

What sets "War" apart from other countless disease-of-the-week movies is that it tells its heartfelt story in a lively and energetic style. Donzelli and Elkaïm, who made the film on a small budget and with a tiny crew, not only follow in the free-spirited footsteps of New Wavers such as Truffaut (who, in "Jules and Jim," made a tragic menage a trois feel like a lighthearted romp) but also manage to cram in many small, authentic-feeling details. 

In nearby and somewhat surprising news, BELGIUM is sending the crime drama Bullhead rather than the latest acclaimed Dardenne Brothers film The Kid With the The Bike. Here's the international trailer for that one which is about illegal cattle hormone trading or some such, farmers and the mafia.

BULLHEAD - international trailer HD from Savage Film on Vimeo.

Pressing Oscar Questions / New Predictions

If you haven't yet noticed, I updated all the Oscar charts yesterday to reflect the latest shifts in buzz. As ever I am not totally enslaved by immediate buzz but try to project forward from it. I don't believe, and past experience backs me up here, that the first word from festivals is the last word on consensus. Festival audiences have, in many cases, different needs than Academy voters and the general public and even mainstream-leaning film critics.  These differing needs range from subject matter to tone to emotional and intellectual content. So there is much we still don't know about the new films winning raves. To win Oscar's heart you generally have to first master or at least make peace with three other audiences (all of which can or do overlap with each other and with Oscar but let's not complicate the matter): Critics (i.e. reviews/perceptions of quality), public (box office), media (are they interested? are their editorial angles or movie stars to keep them engaged). Festivals are the gun going off but never the finish line. So here are some questions I'm pondering.

Won't you join me in answering them?

Michael Fassbender OR Ryan Gosling? I've already pitted them against each other publically/mentally as "The Future of the Movies: Male Division" (do they have any competition?) and perhaps it's a natural evolution from that question but aren't they in direct conflict for an Oscar nod this year? Both have had amazing years with multiple films, some artistically minded, some for commerce but all of which they've been excellent in. Ryan has the more Oscar-friendly fare (Ides of March/Drive) compared to Fassy's kink (Shame/A Dangerous Method) but Fassy may have the more Oscar-friendly personality in terms of his ease with self-promotion (supposedly Gosling is unburdened by the typical Oscar dream).

I don't think there's room for both given the Best Actor field... do you?

What of Alexander Desplat?
His score for The Tree of Life seems likely to be axed for eligibility given all the other music in the film. His score for Carnage is supposedly only heard for a few minutes. His scores for the new Harry Potter and Twilight are both within long running franchises which generally don't show up in the score category since such scores tend to mix old and new themes and there's a been there/done that feeling even if the score is entirely new. Will they stiff their new favorite composer or will it be enough for them to have their all time favorite back? 79 year old John Williams has two Spielberg scores this year (Tin Tin and War Horse) after a long absence and if there was ever a time they wanted to hand him a sixth Oscar, it's probably now.

Captain America or Thor?
I've been asking this question all summer and I suspect very few people care. But hear me out: Isn't one of them going to win multiple Oscar nods? The technical fields are often hugely competitive but they're also friendlier to genre fare than the big eight. Captain America:The First Avenger has the distinct advantage in that it takes place during World War II and thus gets to show off period piece beauty in costuming (for Jeffrey Kurland and Anna B Sheppard who have both been nominated previously but never won)  and art direction (Rick Heinrichs has 3 noms / 1 win to his name) ... but Thor has a more Oscary team in costume designer Alexandra Byrne (4 nods, 1 win) and production designer Bo Welch (4 nominations) and whether or not you think that the ice planet or the mythical realm of Asgard are way too bombastically gaudy in design... Oscar loves overkill in just about any category. See last year's results for Eyesore in Wonderland and every time any pundit ever joked about "Best" being code word for "Most".

 

 Aren't "Restrained" and "Chill" Four Letter Words?
One review called Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy "marvelously chill" and the word "restrained" gets tossed around a lot for both that film and Glenn Close's Oscar bid Albert Nobbs. It's not without precedent that Oscar would embrace the chilly or the restrained but it's also not exactly the wormiest hook for AMPAS to swim towards as history indicates. What does all this mean for Gary Oldman (who our Venice correspondent claimed only raises his voice once in his film) or for Glenn Close both of whom will be waging campaigns based half on these new performances and half on their reputations as important thespians who've endured inexplicable golden snubbings.

Category Placement. To Fraud or Not To Fraud?
This question will never die and is ever a concern since modern cinema doesn't have the same clear divisions of labor as classic Hollywood in terms of "star vs. character actor". What's more many pundits, fans and agents now regularly and actively promote fraud to insure better golden opportunities for their beloved star or meal ticket. The feeling of demotion is largely a thing of the past, an Oscar being an Oscar. The unfortunate and long lasting side effect of this trend (more a tradition than trend now actually) are that real supporting players and character actors have less and less opportunities as genuine stars now rob them of their already scant opportunities for the spotlight on a very regular basis. It's almost impossible to imagine that we'll ever see another Thelma Ritter for example (sniffle). So we'll just have to wait and see how Viola Davis (The Help), Keira Knightley (A Dangerous Method), the entire Carnage cast and any of the young male leads (War Horse, Hugo, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) play it this year since all of them could theoretically opt for either lead or supporting categorization.

What the hell with the Best Animated Film category this year?
The (relative) failure of Cars 2 has left a gaping Pixar sized hole in the category that was arguably specifically designed just to honor Pixar. Rango, an early visually stunning hit, seems to have no real competition whatsoever. It's hard to see any of its competition as nominees, isn't it? There are sequels no one seems particularly excited about yet (Happy Feet 2, Puss in Boots, Kung Fu Panda 2), films that were hits that no one seems particularly excited about (Rio). Arthur Christmas is a question mark but is anyone excited about it? What's more the only event movie that's still to come (The Adventures of TinTin: The Secret of the Unicorn)  should theoretically be disqualified given past AMPAS decisions declaring motion capture ineligible. Is it time to shutter this category or do they just have to hope that it's exciting again next year and the year after? 

The Nomination Is Theirs To Lose. Will They?
Just about every pundit worth his/her salt agrees that The Tree of Life, The Help and Midnight in Paris are the three biggies with Best Picture potential to have already hit theaters. Then there are those stubbornly holding on to hopes for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two (I readily admit bias that I don't think it's deserving even as a cumulative honor) or The Rise of the Planet of the Apes though history suggests that it won't happen since sequels are only ever nominated when their predecessors were. Though I adamantly doubt that either has a good shot at the most coveted of all nominations, there is a first time for everything and it's true that modern franchise culture is a relatively new ubiquitous Hollywood reality and thus Oscar history might not be the best indication of how the Academy will view or soon view franchise efforts.

Should all of these films or even just three of them be nominated... well, that doesn't leave much room at all for the Christmas time films that are still withheld from eager eyeballs or the films that are on everyone's lips having just debuted at this festival or that one.

Which leads us to the final question...

Which of the unseen films will tank?
J Edgar, War Horse, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Iron Lady, Hugo? That's a lot of unseen fare still that even long lead festival audiences haven't gazed upon. Which do you suspect will deliver and which won't?