The Image of 'Drive'

It's been a while since I've seen Drive, but I've been thinking about it recently. I found some old notes I jotted down from night I watched it, and the way it plays with honesty and image seems remarkably prescient. It's a film that offers a startlingly complex commentary on how we approach ourselves and others, how we understand personhood.

The film is most obviously remarkable for Ryan Gosling being all Ryan Gosling-y--all sultry looks and well-lit angles. But that, in fact, is the point. The driver (Gosling's unnamed character) is pure image--the jacket, the gloves, the toothpicks. He has crafted a perfect and perfectly imaginary persona that, for all intents and purposes, defines him. But he knows it. That's the important part. He asks Benicio, the love interest's kid, if he wants a toothpick. The exchange plays on how obvious it is that Benicio sees the driver as a mythical being of sorts--a figure from the mythos of the West. In offering the toothpick, the driver hints that his overwhelming aura of cool is an affectation--"here, take a toothpick, you can do it too."

More importantly, the driver hides his criminal life. His work as a stunt driver is telling as well. He fills in for actors, often, presumably, playing at being a getaway driver--which is his true, hidden profession. But he doesn't play a getaway driver, really. He plays an actor playing a getaway driver. That is, he acts like an actor. It's a higher level of falsity, of knowing that one is pretending to pretend. The driver takes the same approach to his surrogate father role for Benicio--the driver knows that he is only pretending to be the good father that Standard was also pretending to be. They both failed because they are both criminals--the driver is just upfront about that fact. In a way.

The honesty the driver shows is an odd one, of course, given that he is maintaining a secret criminal life. The ironic twist is his insistence that all his criminal dealings be based on an "understanding." He insists on clearly stating the terms of every deal with all parties involved, shedding light on things that are most often shady. And yet he does so precisely while he knowingly fictionalizes himself into this persona by dressing like he does, by consciously giving off that aura of cool.

The exceptions, and the film's most interesting scenes, comes toward the end when the driver drowns Nino. While doing so, the driver wears a prop mask from his work as a stuntman. The mask is a faux-human thing, resembling Jason Voorhees without the trademark hockey mask. It's the opposite of the driver's typical soothingly attractive look. Fitting, perhaps, that he dons the mask when brutally killing a man--a task that is not part of his criminal work as a getaway driver in which he refuses to even carry a gun. Perhaps it's also fitting, if ironic, because this murder comes as revenge for Standard's murder and as a favor for Irene and Benicio (if unasked for)--when acting in a brutally human way, acting for the pure emotion felt towards another, the driver dons a mask that makes him appear inhuman.

Either way, the mask acts as an admission that the driver's persona is unreal. It's a sign of honesty. It demonstrates that the driver's usual appearance is an act, an act he puts on in order to play a role. That role inhibits him from being truly human--why else does he seem to lack any social characteristics at the start of the film? By donning the mask, the driver is admitting that he takes on bits of culture to perform certain roles--getaway driver, murderer--in the same way an actor does.

The honesty comes from the fact that the driver doesn't hide the fact that he is playing these roles. The odd way people interact with him in the film--the long pauses and awkward conversations--results from the fact that he is familiar, but yet inhuman. He plays the role of human characters, but does so in such an imaginary way that he can't interact in a truly human way. The mask admits as much by showing that the driver must match his image to his role, unable to simply act as a person. His personhood is confused with his persona.

Two further points solidify this reading of the film. Nino, the victim on the beach, is the antithesis of the driver. Nino constantly lies, double-crosses, and schemes against his partners (and everyone else). His dishonesty is what drives the film's plot. Yet, he never once hide his criminal nature. He is open about his dishonest ways. The film's plot begins with Nino's complaint that he is known as a Jew--a fact that is perfectly true. He simply resists being known for what he is. His image is true, but shows a liar. The driver's persona is a lie, but belies an honest man.

That honesty is displayed most clearly in the second point--the driver's relationship with Irene. Immediately before the beach scene, the driver brutally murders a man in the elevator with Irene (in order to protect her). But his brutality displays a different, hidden side of him--his criminal nature. It breaks her image of him, shatters his cool persona as his rage clearly shines through during the murder. After, Irene stares at the driver--hair askew, jacket bloody--with loss and confusion and horror. This is what prompts the driver to don his mask on the beach, to change his image. The imaginary nature of his persona comes to the fore, and his relationship is damaged.

But note that the driver was always 'true' with Irene, if dishonest. That is, his persona was never quite equal to his person, but he was true in his intentions and care. In the end of the film, he leaves the money and Irene because he can only act in this fictionalized way. That mythos is how he engages with others and he simply cannot let go of it. But admitting that and refusing to pretend to be a simple person when he is dependent upon these falsified images of himself is the most honest thing the driver could do. He admits his inability to forgo his image--an act that is admits a great weakness, questions his stability as a person, and is truly heroic. That is the source of the ironic power in the film's closing song, "A Real Hero," with its refrain of "a real human being and a real hero."