A Spell

In the vein of Le Samourai and the antics of The Transporter comes another character in that good righteous loner archetype. Ryan Gosling plays him in the same coolness we've seen with the archetype, and adds a bit of weakness and humanity to the role. He's cold, and probably a psychopath, but he's capable of feelings and attachment. This brings him farther from Delon and closer to the more mainstream Statham, without distancing himself from our sentiments.

That was a cheesy line. In contrast to the adjective-less title, this is all about the adjectives. The plot and the characters are constructs we have seen before countless times. Gosling is a garage mechanic who does some work as a stuntman and moonlights as a getaway driver for hire. He is even less adorned than Delon. His apartment lies in the shroud of darkness, as is his past. We are told about how he became, or if he has a personality, or how he feels about certain things.

This almost soulless character appears almost as part of the Los Angeles we get to see. Draped in night, basked in sunlight, driving around hunting for nothing. We're given the sand dunes out of town, the craggy shoreline and deserted beaches, the skyline speckled in technicolour spectrum, the suburbia of the afternoon. It's an alien landscape, almost mythical. Populated yes, but of people we see little of, and we can't dream of understanding. There is something beautifully poetic here in the way it toes subtlety and the apparent. It captures my enamour of aimless driving in an abandoned metropolis, immediately familiar yet teasing of secrets yet to be revealed. As someone who has never been to Los Angeles, and who never really wished to go there, this translates as a message to go there, and that I will love it there. The undeniable sense of cool is aided by the soundtrack of anthems and riffs blending perfectly, seemingly tailor-made for the film (but isn't).

In this landscape (plus soundscape?) is a pretty stellar cast. Everyone manages to do their job and inflect their roles with the same weakness and humanity Gosling opened with. These are the same single mom, single mom's adorable kid, single mom's husband back from prison, token semi-slut in the gang of robbers, gangster, businessman with connections, goof buddy. But they've added another level to each of them that in a lesser movie, would be discarded. Instead, they have small, short scenery to reel us in and make us care. Take the husband (Oscar Isaac). He's no a bad guy at all, and we want to cry out when something happens to him. Take the Ron Perlman caricature and how he made things interesting with his colour. Take Albert Brooks as the businessman/gangster with a conscience. Even Cristina Hendricks who has the shortest of screen time manages to add something by not being dumb and showing some emotion (even if she is the weakest link here).

The film looks into existentialism. Gosling's Driver doesn't show us a past (this was a refreshing take on not having a single flashback), and we don't have a sense of his future—in the start. He is an entity. Like I dabbed, he is almost part of the architecture, the scenery. The move to not waste time telling us about how he came to be so cool saves us time and helps the narrative by endearing the character in the sense of not being an other. There is nothing there to put you off. At the same time, it gives him a sense of myth. He gives the impression that he was always there, and always will be there, making the conflict grander than it actually really is.

This impression carries into the scenes with Carey Mulligan and Kaden Leos. It moves away from the slower, colder, more contemplative first part (which I really liked) to something warmer (supported by the colours and the music). What was originally this rather bleak takes on another form, becoming more about the mythical Driver helping this family, making things right, feeling responsible, taking the blame, becoming a real hero, a real human being, before driving on. It ends on such a winsome tone that it's hard to argue against it being one of the best feel-good movies in a really long time.

Finally, I have a new movie to recommend the hell to everyone I will see.