Drive (On The Couch 2012 #4)
Going into Drive, I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about it. It seemed to be a very polarizing movie. Almost everyone I know who has seen it either loves it and thought it was robbed at the Oscars or found it slow and unwatchable. Now that I’ve seen it, I can say that while I don’t think it was robbed of an Oscar nomination, I definitely fall on the side of people who liked the movie.
I thought Drive was very well paced, so I don’t get people who found it too slow.
Ryan Gosling gives what appears to be another seemingly effortless performance as the unnamed driver in Drive. By effortless, please don’t think I’m calling him lazy. I’m not. I’m amazed by Ryan Gosling as an actor. He seems to fall into each character he plays so easily. It never seems like I’m watching Ryan Gosling play a character as much as it feels like watching Ryan Gosling now as a that person.
For a movie with not that many violent scenes, I was amazed at how violent the violence was on screen. When Ryan Gosling is stomping a hole in that guy’s face in the elevator, I recoiled the same way as when I saw the “eat the sidewalk” scene in American History X.
My only knock against Drive is that I didn’t get the point of the neon title logo and 80s-esque synth pop soundtrack. The movie takes place in the present day, right? Is it supposed to be evocative of 80s movies, or am I just reading too much into things?
Since seeing Drive, I’ve developed a habit of hanging my watch from my steering wheel and telling people they have five minutes to get back in my car before taking them on a high speed car ride. There’s no way this is going to end well…
GQ: You’ve mentioned John Hughes’ influence on this film. Can you explain that?
Nicolas Winding Refn: Well I grew up in the ’80s and John Hughes was the filmmaker making serious movies for teenagers. Sixteen Candles was my first introduction to love in cinema, like pure, childish love. The first half was very much inspired by that emotion of the simplicity of love, the romanticism of love, the idea of love. They’re so pure and playful with each other, and it’s never complicated. It’s never messy, you know?
GQ: There are almost no signifiers of what year this movie is taking place. Was that an intentional move?
Nicolas Winding Refn: I wanted to lift the notion of time, because like fairy tales, they’re symbolic storytelling. They’re metaphors. The fairy tale always takes place in worlds that are between, unidentifiable.
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