The Hollow Muse

The Movie

Drive is a movie from 2011 directed by Nicolas Winding Refn that stars Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman, Oscar Issac, and Christina Hendricks. 

 The synopsis goes like this:

A guy who apparently has no name (Ryan Gosling, aka Driver) makes his living by working in a mechanic shop, doing car stunts for movies, and driving getaway cars for criminals at night.  When the recently-released-from-prison husband (Oscar Isaac, aka Standard) of his neighbor (Carey Mulligan, aka Irene) is in deep with some bad people, Driver offers his services for a job that Standard is coerced into doing in order to repay his debts.  Things go very poorly with said job, undamming a flood of violence and chaos that threatens everyone near and dear to Driver.

The Moment

Nicolas Winding Refn has an extreme talent for visually pleasing camera work.  This movie is so beautifully lit and shot that almost every scene contains some force of gravity that pulls your eyes toward the screen and doesn’t let go.  Let’s run through some of the best moments:

• The opening scene.
  • Does this sequence really need an explanation?  We get the pleasure of tagging along for one of Driver’s moonlighting gigs, and we learn an important thing: He drives.  10/10 in terms of ways to open a movie.      

• When Driver gives Irene and Benicio a ride home.
  • This scene almost feels like a dream.  It is pure catharsis for the protagonist and serves as one of the only moments in the movie when Driver actually feels like *queue the movie’s primary theme song* a real human being.  It is altogether blissful, peaceful, beautiful, and, without question, the happiest moment of the movie.

• The car chase after the botched pawn shop robbery.
  • The movie establishes early on that Driver is incredibly competent regarding his side hustle.  That’s probably why his character’s name is Driver.  You can’t have a name that is literally just your job title unless you’re really good at your job.  While the opening scene shows how clever, cunning, and strategic Driver is, this scene showcases his physical skill set behind the wheel.  The chase culminates with Driver driving in reverse and doing one of those things where he pulls the e-brake and turns the wheel, forcing the car to do a 180-degree spin while also completing a successful, albeit highly illegal, U-turn.  This causes the car chasing him to crash because I assume whoever was driving that car did not also have the name Driver.  It looks so incredibly cool and makes me question my entire life when I think about my struggles with parallel parking.

• Nino, Bernie, Shannon, and Driver are all at Shannon’s repair shop.
  • Now, this one may seem slightly out of place with all of these beautiful moments and scenes, but I want to mention it because it stands out to me every time I watch it.  What happens is that Nino (Ron Perlman) shows up at Shannon’s (Bryan Cranston) auto shop to see the stock car that Bernie (Albert Brooks) has purchased.  He is looking at the car and immediately begins talking shit about it – but that’s not the moment.  The moment happens right after that when Nino turns around and sees a clean and stylish red classic car.  He then absurdly says, “Now this is one motherfuckin’ fine ass pussy mobile motherfucker”, or something like that.  The line is so ridiculous, and the way he delivers it feels so forced and unnatural that it takes you completely out of the movie for like 8 seconds.  It never fails to make me laugh.

The Score

Drive contains one of my favorite score/soundtrack combinations of all time. The score was composed by Cliff Martinez, a notable film composer and also one of the earlier members of The Red Hot Chili Peppers. His work in Drive creates a dreamy, ethereal, emotional atmosphere that lets the movie catch its breath between moments of tension. It is truly a beautiful and underrated element of the film. 

As for the soundtrack, it is not comprised of many songs, but the songs that are used are implemented in a near-perfect way.  When a movie can do that thing where it introduces a song that is not very well-known, but then the song becomes well-known because of the movie, it has achieved something special.  This movie has not one but two of these songs.  The first is Nightcall by Kavinsky, which we hear during the opening credits, and the second is A Real Hero by Electric Youth and College, which serves as the movie’s quasi-main theme.  Both of these songs are songs that you hear somewhere and say “Oh, listen, it’s that song from Drive.” and then whoever you’re with will probably say something like, “Who cares.” 

Explain this to me

Okay, we get it.  It’s Ryan Gosling – the most handsome, charming, sweet, layered man on planet Earth.  It’s no wonder that Irene is attracted to him.  Who isn’t?  But if we’re being honest – and I mean completely, 100% honest – his character in this movie is a complete psychopath, right?  Can his good looks really make up for that?  What if he wasn’t so strikingly handsome? 

Let us imagine that the main character of this movie still has most of the same personality traits.  On the surface, he is quiet, charming, intelligent, sensitive, humble, handy, and talented.  He also has a dark side.  He has parts of his life that he wants to keep hidden from others.  He is mysterious.  He is frighteningly calculated.  He has an internal rage that seeps through the cracks of his heart in certain moments – so much so that he will go as far as murdering someone.  He is a criminal.  He is violent, dangerous, and unpredictable.  These are all qualities that might make a man as handsome as Ryan Gosling much more intriguing and alluring.  Now, let’s take this character, and instead of having him look like Ryan Gosling,  let’s have him look like Andy Reid – the three-time Super Bowl-winning head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs.  

I am in no way trying to disrespect Andy Reid and his physical appearance; I’m just stating the fact that he, in no way whatsoever, resembles Ryan Gosling.  So, what is our relationship to this character now?  How do we feel about his choices and actions?  How do we feel about him giving Irene and her son a ride home and then taking a sudden detour down to the L.A. river where there is not another human soul in sight?  How do we feel about him standing at the end of the grocery aisle, uncomfortably watching Irene and her son shop?  How do we feel about him staring longingly at them from the window of his apartment?  How about when he helps Irene with her groceries and then just sort of lingers in her apartment, barely speaking a word?  Or when he pushes Irene to the side of the elevator, kisses her for a few seconds, and then stomps on that guy’s head until it cracks like an egg?  I haven’t done the numbers, but I would love to see the complete-sentences-spoken versus guys-killed ratio that Driver has in this movie – I assume it’s alarmingly close.  The point is, I just can’t imagine we would have the same relationship toward Driver if he looked like Andy Reid.  And the only reason Irene was curious about the possibility of having a relationship with Driver was solely because he looked like Ryan Gosling – because he was played by Ryan Gosling. 

Don’t get me wrong – I love Ryan Gosling, and I love this character and this movie – but he is a total weirdo-lunatic.  His relationship with Irene and Benicio is the only hope for a normal life that he will ever have, and he’s struggling so hard to hold onto it.  But we all know he will never have a normal life – because he is a rage-filled psychopathic murderer.

The Takeaway

This movie deals with a lot of different themes, stemming from loneliness, isolation, right and wrong, hopes and dreams, the duality of man, etc.  But my takeaway from it is not nearly as philosophical or internal.  My biggest takeaway from this movie is that I wish there were more movies like it, meaning, I wish more movies were made in this fashion.  This is a movie that makes me excited about the possibilities of movies in general and how simple yet magnetic they can be.  Its strongest qualities are as follows:

• The Cast –  This movie has an incredible cast of actors who have all reached superstardom separately in their careers, yet none of them were at their peak during this film (an example is Oscar Isaac who only has like 5 minutes of actual screen time).  It was the perfect casting storm.

• The Runtime – This movie tells a fully interesting and coherent story in only 1 hour and 40 minutes, making it easy to watch and commit to.  I love long movies too, but any time I can get a recommendation for something under two hours, it’s a no-brainer.  

• The Plot – The plot for this movie is straightforward and easy to follow, but not in the least bit boring.  It doesn’t lose the viewer with unnecessary exposition or major plot twists that have you trying to remember previous scenes.  It is clear, concise, and riveting.

• The Aesthetic – The neon-lit nighttime scenery and synth-based score/soundtrack make this movie cool.  That’s it.  This movie is cool and I want to see more cool movies.

Some other notable takeaways that are mainly just precautions:

• If you meet someone who has the personality traits of Driver but does not look anything like Ryan Gosling, you need to stay far, far away from them (see previous section). 

• If you are going to commit a series of very severe crimes including theft and murder, and also get stabbed almost to death, all for your neighbor who you have a crush on, at least make sure she knows what your name is.  We never hear Irene say Driver’s name once, assumingly because she, like us, doesn’t know what it is.  She probably had his number saved in her phone under “hot neighbor” or maybe even “driver guy” or something. 

• Don’t get involved with Nino’s friends.   

Have you seen this?

I asked my wife this question, to which she responded, “Yes.”  

To which I responded, “There’s no way in hell.”  

I thought she was just saying yes so that she didn’t have to watch the movie with me because she knew the odds were that she would not necessarily enjoy it.  But, as it turns out, she was not intentionally lying to me (which she would never do because she is an angel, sent from the heavens).  The movie she thought I was asking her if she had seen was actually the 1994 action movie Speed, starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock.  It was an honest and understandable mix-up, given the similar one-word, one-syllable, automobile-adjacent titles.  

So, again, much to my delight and much to her apprehension, she watched Drive with me (because she is an angel, sent from the heavens).

We finished the movie, and she admitted that she enjoyed Drive more than the 45 minutes she watched of No Country For Old Men, but also made it clear that she would never watch it again in her life.  She also had some notes on the film.  

Mainly: Standard Gabriel got a raw deal, and Irene “has a bad picker”.  

I was surprised by this.  Out of all the people I’ve had conversations with about this movie, not one person has ever been sympathetic toward Oscar Isaac’s character – but she is totally and absolutely right.  As previously mentioned, Standard is not in the movie for very long, and from what little we know about him, combined with his disdain towards the movie’s “protagonist”, the natural reaction for the audience is to not like this character.  But what did he do wrong?  Was he a worse person than Driver?  Let’s go through the side-by-side comparison that my wife and I did after she brought this point up.

1. We don’t exactly know what Standard went to prison for, but it couldn’t have been for something as bad as murder due to his seemingly short-served time.  Meanwhile, we watch Driver brutally kill multiple people. 

2. We are in no way led to believe that Standard is at all violent towards Irene.  Meanwhile, we see Driver smack the ever-loving shit out of Blanche (Christina Hendricks), a woman he barely knows. 

3. Standard is forced into committing crimes.  Driver does this willingly in his spare time.

4. Standard is able to talk.  Driver does not speak.  This one is important because if you’re going to be in a relationship with somebody, you preferably want them to be able to speak words or maybe use sign language.  Driver does neither. 

5. Standard has a real name that is acceptable on all forms of identification.  Driver does not have a name.  This one is self-explanatory. 

So, there you have it. 

Justice For Standard T-shirts will be available on this website’s non-existent merch tab.