Imagine you're listening to a piece of classical music performed by a string quartet. The music is slow and leisurely. There's rarely more than one instrument playing at a time and long moments of silence punctuate the pianissimo. You're enjoying this music. It's warm, comforting, hypnotic. You could listen to it all day.
Drive is a very strange movie. It stars Ryan Gosling, a genetic hybrid of Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, as a cool, detached getaway driver cum mechanic who begins a shy, reserved relationship with his neighbour, Carey Mulligan. The opening scene is a tense car chase (or non-chase) that sets you up for more of the same, then wrongfoots the audience by steering them into a romantic cul de sac. When Mulligan's ex turns up, you suspect things are going to go bad for our hero: just how bad you'll never guess.
Drive is a movie where bad people do bad things, and good people do worse. It has moments of horrific violence which might have passed unnoticed in an action movie yet stand out like the aforementioned bagpipes here. It has Christina Hendricks, like you've never seen her before. It has a magnetic performance from Mulligan and a mumbling intensity from Gosling that recalls Brando at his white-vested best. It has a weird soundtrack made up of 80s synth bands. It feels like it could be happening right now or any time in the last five decades. It might be one of the best films I've seen this year... but I'm still not sure I actually enjoyed it.
