By: debbie lynn elias
The Oscar race heats up this week as DRIVE races into theaters across the country. With a stunning turn by Ryan Gosling leading the way, DRIVE really explodes with its supporting actors, Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman, both whom give us the best performances of their careers. Compounding their excellence is incredible technical proficiency with cinematography and sound design, plus some of the best core stunt work and driving I have seen in years, the latter of which is helmed by Darrin Prescott. And did I mention one of the top Must Have soundtracks of the year? Director Nicolas Winding Refn crosses the finish line with a high octane mix of art house aesthetics, the excitement and intrigue of pulp fiction punctuated with indelible images of bloody violence bringing us one heart-pounding neo-noir thriller.
Stuntman by day, wheelman for hire driving getaway cars for armed heists by nights, “Driver” is an enigma. A quiet loner, he is a man with no name; a 21st Century Clint Eastwood in a Sergio Leone western. A man who lets action speak instead of words. A man who flies under the radar, has no desire for money, possessions or entanglements. A disciplined, methodical man. A man who lives within himself, pushing himself to the adrenalin extreme. A man with no responsibilities or commitments other than showing up on a movie set or working on cars for his stunt coordinator friend. A man who is his own man, that is until he meets Irene and her young son, Benicio.
Irene is, by all definition, a damsel in distress. A seemingly single mother, she waitresses at a Denny’s (although her apartment looks a lot better than someone just getting tips at Denny’s), has no man around, has a young son with no guidance and is herself alone and lonely. Pretty, quiet and petite, she just happens to live next door to Driver. He notices her, but doesn’t take notice; that is until he sees her again at the local grocery store. Smitten, he waits in the parking lot hoping to catch another glimpse of her. How fortunate for him then when she has car trouble and he comes to her rescue.
It doesn’t take long before Driver’s involvement with Irene is more than riding in on his silver charger (the 4 wheeled kind as opposed to the 4 hooved kind) with colors flying (in this case, a silver jacket emblazoned with an orange scorpion) and he begins to envision a kind of life he never imagined he could have. But that dream is quickly squelched when Irene’s no good husband Standard is released from prison and comes home to reunite his little family. Standard, however, doesn’t come home with a clean slate. He brings baggage from prison; baggage that now threatens Irene and Benicio. And luckily for them, Driver still rides that silver charger.
In bed with the local mob and unable to pay his debt, Standard is forced to pull a heist that will allegedly make him even with the boys. Fearing for the safety of Irene and Benicio, Driver jumps in to the mix and breaking his own code of no involvement other than driving, soon finds himself embroiled in a war that goes beyond Standard and the prison goons. It lands right at his own front door. Involving his stunt driver partner Shannon and Shannon’s “business” associates, Bernie Rose and Nino, what should have been a clean job turns into an all out Mafia war where there can only be one winner.
One of the best performances of his career, Ryan Gosling amazes as Driver. A quiet, mysterious, a man of action rather than words, he plays it close to the vest, exhibiting a concentrated tacit intensity that is compelling, intriguing, spellbinding. You want to see what this guy does. His moves are slow and methodical. His stance and walk, calculated, often with shoulders slumped as if “hiding”. Gosling embodies Driver as a man who is always “within himself.” But beyond the emotional and psychological aspect of Driver is the physical and Gosling is proud to say he did much of his own stunt driving. “The really cool stuff I didn’t do. But the cool stuff I did. The really cool stuff was Jay Fry who’s about as good as it gets.” To prepare for the driving, Gosling “spent two weeks going to this church parking lot with Darrin Prescott [stunt coordinator]. Everytime we got there, there’d be a new Camaro or a new Mustang and we would ride it to the rims and when it was on fire or smoking or just wouldn’t move, some guy would come and take it away and fix it and we’d go home. It was the best two weeks of prep I’ve ever had.”
Gosling was involved in the production every step of the way and completely informed the character of Driver right down to costume and cars. In fact, he designed the driving gloves himself. “I have many versions of them.” And when it comes to Driver’s car, lookout! Never one to have a real interest in cars, Gosling “worked on this car that I drive in the movie so I have affection for it. Even it kind of rubs me the wrong way because I worked with this guy Pedro who’s a lovely guy but he changed my transmission and it really stinks. Because I did everything on the car except for that and he knew it. And on the last day when I was going to finish the car, I came in and he had changed my transmission. It cut me. Now I can’t say I did everything on the car!”
Carey Mulligan eases into the role of Irene, herself bringing a tacit, tentative shyness to the role. Her chemistry with Gosling is undeniable with their mutual silences speaking volumes. Disbelievable, however is the character of Standard played by Oscar Isaac, and the relationship between Irene and Standard. It never gels and at no time does one believe that Irene would ever have been “impressed” by Standard, even at age 17.
The real showstoppers, though, are Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman. As Bernie Rose and Nino, respectively, you are looking at two of the hot Oscar contenders for Best Supporting Actor. They are both delicious. Bernie is essentially, an older Driver; equally methodical, calculating and secretive. and calculating. When it comes to Brooks, “He was the only person we wanted to play this role. He had to do it.” Having seen the film, not only does Gosling believe that Brooks’ Rose is “one of the most memorable parts and not only does he play that character, but he owns that character to the point where he possesses it and you can’t see anyone else playing that part.”
Similarly, Perlman’s pimped out Nino is an older Shannon who likes to run off at the mouth and always manages to carry a chip on his shoulder and dig himself into one hole after another, with Bernie bailing him out. Loud, voracious and flamboyant, Perlman has you salivating for more Nino…especially when wearing a velour leisure suit. Equally effusive in his praise for Ron Perlman, Gosling describes him “as an endless well of great lines.”
For Gosling, the perfect anecdote to describe working with Perlman, “I’m trying to drown him in the ocean and everytime I push him into the water, the tide goes out, and I’m just pushing his face into the mud. But then, the wave comes back and knocks us both over and we have to start again. We do it all night until the sun comes up. And he tears his ACL and when we finally get the one shot…he stands up and he says to Nicolas [Rehn], he screams, ‘Well, Nic, you know that was the one. And if you don’t like that, you don’t like ice cream, [expletive, expletive].’ And he does a snap and he limps back to his trailer.”
Not to be overlooked is Bryan Cranston who is a perfect foil as Driver’s “partner” Shannon. The complete opposite of Driver, Shannon is reckless in his actions, thoughts and running of the mouth, all of which resulted in Shannon suffering a debilitating injury that took him out of the stunt game. In the hands of a less skilled actor, Shannon could have proved to be a prattling annoyance, but with Cranston at work, he becomes an integral and interesting component in the playing field.
Written by Hossein Amini based on the novel by James Sallis, the script is original, exciting, well constructed with minimal dialogue and characters with dramatic counterpoints. I have to say, though, that in my 30+ years knowing and working with stunt guys and ‘drivers’, I know of none who used their skills for aiding and abetting crimes. The plot is multilayered with twists and turns as calculating as the characters and that surprise at every turn. And the ending…. WOW!
Gosling was immediately enthralled on reading the script. “I’ve always wanted to see a violent John Hughes movie. . .and on top of that, when I was a kid and I first saw ‘First Blood’ it put a spell on me and I thought I was Rambo. I went to school the next day with my Fischer-Price Houdini kit filled with steak knives and I threw them at all the kids at recess. And I got suspended. Which I should have been. And I learned my lesson. And I’m sorry. But my parents then put a leash on me and said the kid can’t watch movies because they put a spell on him. So I could only watch Bible movies and National Geographic movies and Abbott & Costello movies. All of those movies are kind of violent. My point is, I know that when I read the script and I was looking at the characters, I thought that he was going around acting like a maniac, I thought this is somebody who had seen too many movies. It seemed that we could go deeper into that idea and that he had seen too many films and had basically become the hero of the movie of his life. I thought that could be implemented into the script. But I needed a director who could help me achieve that.”
Enter director Nicolas Winding Rehn who mesmerized Gosling with his direction of “Valhalla Rising” and the essence he creates of the film being “deeply rooted in mythology…His films are like Grimm brothers fairytales. I felt like [DRIVE] should have a fairytale quality…Driver is more like a knight in his mind anyway. Irene is the damsel in distress. Ron Perlman is the dragon and Bernie Rose [Albert Brooks] is the evil wizard.”
A unique filmmaking process, according to Gosling, “We would cut out all the dialogue and then shoot all day. Then go home and edit it. Then drive around all night listening to music or go to the 101 Diner and talking about life, music and movies. That would influence what we shot the next day. So it had this dreamlike quality while we were shooting it. And that’s what the movie feels like.”
DRIVE is one of the best technically executed films of the year. Camerawork is superb. Newton Thomas Sigel’s cinematography is highly polished art complimented by the grit of the underworld reflecting a great play of light and shadows. Great use of close-ups fuel story intensity. The various color and tonal palettes are reflective and defining of each character. And kudos to Sound Designers Lon Bender and Victor Ennis I hope the filmmakers push for Oscar consideration for editing and sound mixing. Both are exemplary. Foley work and mixing have us hearing the crunch of bone, the splatter, sputter and gurgling of blood, all set apart from the rev of engines or quietness of a dying breath or explosion of gunfire. Incredible work. Best sound design of the year. Equally superlative is the sharply honed, crisp editing by Matthew Newman.
Having worked 2nd unit action scenes myself, and being close friends with a countless number of some of Hollywood’s best stuntmen/drivers over the years, I know the difficulty of not only designing, coordinating and executing driving stunts, plus calculated bloodletting violence, but making each distinctive, non-repetitive and non-gratuitous. With DRIVE, Rehn and stunt coordinator Darrin Prescott and his team, are masterful in not only the execution of each chase scene or 1:1 violent encounter, but in the tonal composition of each, retaining the defining essence of film noir but elevating it into this neo-noir stylization. Particularly notable is Rehn’s use and depiction of violence which relies heavily on visual and auditory suggestion as opposed to outright blood and guts gore, which allows shock and imagination to take hold. While visceral, but surprisingly quick, with every instance of violence, one is caught off guard, pulled from the seat with one’s comfort level disturbed to the nth degree.
Big thanks go to REO Speedwagon without whom DRIVE may never have been made. After a “first terrible meeting”, “a bad date”, “no one was getting any action” between Gosling and Rehn, REO came on the radio while Gosling was driving Rehn home. As Rehn was exiting the car, “REO comes on the radio and [Rehn] starts crying. And he starts singing at the top of his lungs – the song – to me. And he said, ‘This is it. This is why DRIVER can’t feel anything unless he’s driving around.’ The movie was conceived in my car…The film is a great representation of what the process of making it was like. The way we made the movie informed what it was.” And the song? “I Can’t Fight This Feeling.”
Although the final soundtrack does not include any REO Speedwagon, Cliff Martinez’ score is to-die-for that fuels the fire of DRIVE.
Calculating. Methodical. High gloss. Slick. Polished. DRIVE is the neo-noir thriller of the year.
Driver – Ryan Gosling
Irene – Carey Mulligan
Bernie Rose – Albert Brooks
Nino – Ron Perlman
Shannon – Bryan Cranston
Directed by Nicolas Winding Rehn. Written by Hossein Amini based on the book by James Sallis.
