After this screened at Cannes (where director Nicolas Winding Refn won Best Director), I remember most from tweets and reviews that the film was hard to shake. That’s where I am, several hours later. I just can’t shake it.
The story is a simple one: unnamed stunt driver does a little getaway driving on the side. Has an unspoken, eyes-only relationship with a neighbor (they love each other like high schoolers, though never mention a word). One job goes awry, Driver has to clean up to protect her. This is one of those films where it’s all about style. We’ve seen this story before. However, it’s not style-over-substance, because the style has so much substance. Refn makes no secret that he is emulating a certain 80s grit. Michael Mann came to mind, Miami Vice (I heard that Refn claimed he wanted to make a John Hughes film where all the characters start kicking each other’s asses). It fits in a weird way, that this late-night Los Angeles crime film belongs in the 80s. That’s not all, though. There’s an indie-film quiet to the start of the film. Gosling is the perfect choice to play the unnamed driver, a character whose total dialogue could be printed on two pages; he fills a quiet frame with so much. The first 45 minutes or so is, on the surface, a quiet, sparse peace. But there’s something underneath it all - sound design, the constant visual movement forward - that drives (ha) it all toward something, like a car accelerating towards a brick wall. Is he going to crash? Is there a tinge of violent jealousy in a husband’s voice? Is there something louder ahead, rougher?
When it finally does hit, when the film kicks over into 5th gear, there’s such a devastating power to it. Constant, graphic violence begets more constant, more graphic violence. It’s not Eli Roth or the Saw films; it doesn’t feel exploitative or sensational. It feels inevitable. That underflow of subconscious forward momentum (the cars, the relationships, the business deals), combined with the familiarity of the 80s tone (“have I seen this before?”), makes it all wrap up like a Greek tragedy. And all wrapped in a slick, stylish cool.
