Drive

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston

It is difficult to describe what it feels like to see Drive.  Billed pretty much as an action movie, it’s jarring how dreamily it’s paced, yet once you’ve settled into the grove set by the music and long, slow scenes, the movie blows your head off.  But it’s pace still doesn’t pick up, the film just becomes brutally violent.  It’s emotionally engaging, but also distant, breathtaking but horrifying.   And you love it.  So, whatever word describes that.

Ryan Gosling once again proves that he’s one of the best actors working today with a performance the like of which is rarely seen.  Barely speaking or changing his facial expression, he gives an understated, subtle and unbelievably controlled performance as the Driver.  Most of the time, Gosling has an almost naive serenity in his face, with an underlying tension that unsettles, yet still with disarming charm that causes women to suddenly be aware of their wedding rings and causes men to speculate aloud that Gosling would probably “be pretty chill to hang out with.”  He handles well the romantic and dreamy first third, which is essentially the slow development of a lovely romance, until Carey Mulligan receives word that her husband will be released from prison in a week.  In the final two-thirds of the film, he serves as the Gibraltar-like center to the escalating violence and body count.  Without Gosling, the deliberate pace would have lacked the bottled-lightning energy that makes the film edge-of-your-seat suspenseful instead of clumsily brooding.

Though the plot is straight-forward, there’s a lurking malevolence that keeps us from ever getting comfortable.  When Gosling’s character, who is pretty amicable and gentle for the most part, suddenly and quietly tells someone in a diner, “How ’bout this – shut your mouth or I’m going to kick your teeth down your throat and I’ll shut it for you,” it’s a shocking shift we somehow knew was coming.  Director Refn is as concerned with mood and tone as he is with plot and character development.  To a viewer expecting The Fast and the Furious, such attention to mood slows the pace, but for those willing to go on the ride Refn designed, it creates a slowly burning tension that makes every word and action significant and makes the movie sizzle.