To Live and DRIVE in L.A.
Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive is like a relic from the ’80s–an arty thriller that pulses along to the beat of a Tangerine Dream-inspired synth-pop soundtrack. Even the font of the opening credits would be at home at the front end of To Live and Die in L.A. 
It’s an efficient little noir that revolves around a stunt driver (never named in the film) who moonlights as a getaway driver, giving his clients five minutes of his time to take them to safety. Complications arise for the enigmatic loner when he falls for neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan), whose husband is in trouble, the kind of trouble that pulls the driver in deep when he agrees to help.
Danish director Refn brings a vibrant, gorgeously saturated colour to the film, and has a knack for crafting moments that linger in the psyche. There are moments when he drops the sound almost entirely and slows events down so they are steadily absorbed through the pores. It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve seen it, but I can still picture the moment when the Driver and Irene get into an elevator with a suspicious stranger. The visuals are drenched in a sunflower-yellow and the scene subtly shifts a beat slower and into silence as the Driver moves Irene to the rear of the elevator and, as cover for preparatory action, gives her a lingering kiss. It’s a great little sequence, one that ends in sudden and extreme violence, and tells us more about the central character than any lengthy monologue. The Driver has little past that we’re told of directly, yet the direction and Gosling’s detailed performance feed us all we need to know.
The Driver is a complicated, yet mysterious character, and his relationship with Irene plays out in wordless moments, glances, smiles, gestures. Because they don’t talk about it their love becomes magical. It’s brilliantly understated and moving, and like the whole film it works its way under your skin. The music, a retro synth score by Cliff Martinez and a few 80s-style pop songs, complement the stylish visuals like a hand in a leather driving glove. Refn has said that the films of ’80s teen movie director John Hughes were a key influence. Hughes’ movies had similarly interesting pop music, and the songs in Drive appear to comment on the character of the Driver and, like all good film scores, add another layer. I kept tripping back to other films thinking that, just on the other side of town, James Caan was busting into a safe to the electro-pulse of Tangerine Dream and William L. Petersen and John Pankow were driving the wrong way up a freeway to the beat of Wang Chung.
Drive is a pure visual exercise and a superb example of how films, in the hands of gifted artists, say the majority of what they want to say through image. Everything else is important only in how it interacts with image. Refn is a filmmaker to watch and Drive is one of my favourite films of the year.
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Postscript – I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the superb supporting performance of Albert Brooks, playing against type as a small time crime operator with a psychotic streak a mile wide.
