When I first saw a reference to the movie Drive, I thought it was a car movie like Fast & Furious, or an action like The Transporter. I avoided it because it’s not what I usually go for. Avoided it for ten years. However, one iconic scene appeared in a Facebook advertisement for a totally unrelated web novel, and I finally decided to watch the film. It was the elevator scene.
I will start off by saying this is full of spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film and intend to, don’t watch any of the trailers. Not only do the trailers spoil a great deal of the movie, but they give a very false idea of the kind of movie it is.
If you’ve watched the film, you will be familiar with a theme throughout the movie. The scorpion. The Driver wears a jacket with a gold embroidered scorpion on the back. What this represents in not really clear until later in the film. Even then, it’s not completely straight forward.
The Driver, our nameless protagonist, makes a reference to the story of The Scorpion and the Frog. You must know the story to understand the reference. The movie does not spoon feed it to you. It goes like this. A scorpion wants to cross a river but, because it can’t swim, it asks a frog to carry it across. The frog is afraid that the scorpion will sting it. The scorpion reassures the frog, telling him that he wouldn’t, because it would not be in his best interest-they both would drown. Happy with this, the frog lets him climb on and swims across. Before the frog can reach the other side, the scorpion stings the frog. Their fate is sealed. The frog, now dying, asks the scorpion why he stung him knowing they both would drown. The scorpion replies, ‘I couldn’t help it. It’s in my nature.’
Drive. Not a title referencing a car action flick, but a reference to what drives us. After you come to this realization, I suggest you watch the movie a second time. We learn at the beginning of the film that the protagonist is a getaway driver for criminals. The film, and the actor, present the protagonist as a quiet and socially awkward figure. He has rules, he is completely detached from those who works with, but he is true to his word. He explains to a client that they have a five-minute window where he is, ‘. . .all yours. No matter what.’ A minute before or after, you’re on your own.
This detached and emotionless persona is then presented with Irene, a neighbor living on the same floor, and her son Benicio. This is where we begin to see a bit of a shift in the Driver’s focus. He comes across the two of them in a little shop and pauses to listen to their exchange in a different aisle. Irene tells her son he’s a monkey, and he retorts playfully that she is. Then, they tell each other, ‘I love you.’ The Driver is drawn to this warm exchange between the two. Perhaps he wants to be part of it- to experience what it is to be a ‘real human being’ as one of the film’s songs say.
We hear this song for the first time when he takes Irene and Benicio on a fun drive and end up at a small pond. They spend hours at the pond, skipping rocks and exploring. At one point, Benicio and Irene find scorpion pincers and spar with them. Like two scorpions fighting. This is important, because I think this represents both internal and external conflict.
Let’s begin with the internal. The Driver, as we know, is quiet and awkward throughout the first half of the movie. He seems vulnerable in a way, with an often-childlike gaze. What we see throughout the first half of the movie is just The Driver wearing a mask. His first real interaction with Irene is when he helps her with groceries and enters her apartment. The first thing Benicio does is put on a frightening Halloween mask. ‘Scary,’ The Driver says. In this shot, Benicio is an innocent child wearing a frightening mask, and The Driver is a frightening person wearing an innocent mask. It’s not until Irene’s husband returns from jail and he realizes that the possibility of a place in the warm family unit was out of reach, that we see a glimpse of the other side. The real side. After meeting Irene’s husband for the first time, he’s sitting at a diner where he is recognized by a previous client. When the client approaches him and tries to make a business proposal, the Driver cuts him off with the words, ‘How about this? Shut your mouth. Or I’ll kick your teeth down your throat and I’ll shut it for you.’
This is the first glimpse of a violent side that we see from The Driver. His voice is soft, never angry, and the eyes still childlike in their gaze, but frighteningly so. The man he’s talking to is clearly unnerved and takes his leave.
At this point in the film, most people expect there to be a rivalry between Irene’s husband, Standard, and The Driver, but the story makes a surprising turn. Standard is beat up because he refuses to do a robbery in order to pay back protection money he owes from jail. The people threaten to go after Irene and Benicio next. The Driver can see how much Standard loves Irene and his son and, even though it means he’s out of the picture, he decides to help him. He wants to protect Irene and Benicio too. Here, he puts his own desires aside in order to protect this family unit that he desperately wanted to be part of. Of course, it all goes wrong after Standard is killed in the robbery, and The Driver realizes the whole thing was a set up.
Here is where the symbolism of two scorpions comes in with the external conflict. The Driver’s boss tries to go straight by persuading mob boss Bernie Rose to invest in a racing car so they can get The Driver into the race circuit. When The Driver first meets Mr. Rose, the two look at each other. Bernie offers The Driver his hand. The Driver doesn’t it take it at first, taking his time as he removes his driving gloves. ‘My hands are a little dirty,’ The Driver says. ‘So are mine,’ Bernie replies.
They are both scorpions. They recognize each other.
When you think about the graphic violence in this film and narrow it down to the main perpetrators it comes down to two: The Driver and Mr. Rose. Mr. Rose, like The Driver, appears to be a a non threatening character who cares about the people he’s working with. Mr. Rose’s business partner, Nino, seems to be the more unpredictable of the two. A crass hardheaded guy who is physically more intimidating. Nino is also the one who set up Standard to get killed. We expect the violence from Nino, but it never comes from him. It comes from Mr. Rose.
Mr. Rose and The Driver never use guns. Well, The Driver does use a shotgun in the first real ‘battle’ when he’s in a tight spot and outnumbered-but it isn’t his. He takes it from one of his opponents and uses it once. The Driver uses whatever he has at hand. Even when it’s premeditated, he resorts to things like hammers, nearly using it to drive a bullet into a man’s skull when it would’ve been easier to fire it. It reveals a gruesome side to his character. When he’s holding the bullet against the man’s forehead, the hammer shakes in his hand. He wants to hammer that bullet in so badly, and he has to force himself to stop, because what he’s after is the bigger fish-the one who had Standard killed. The one who is responsible for killing Benicio’s dad. To put it clearly, he’s not angry that Standard is dead. He’s angry because his death has hurt Irene and Benicio- his true focus.
The desire to inflict violence is so strong that, even when he has Nino on the phone a moment later, sweat is dripping from his chin. This is when we realize that although The Driver is motivated by a desire to protect Irene and Benicio, he has a psychotic nature. ‘It’s in my nature,’ the scorpion says.
And just like The Driver, Mr. Rose is psychotic in his own way. Encounters with him always feel a little threatening, but he has a warm unthreatening face. He uses sharp objects to destroy his victims. Like a scorpion, he stabs his first victim-an employee- repeatedly in the neck. He later uses a blade to slice open, Shannon’s arm (The Driver’s boss), and he brings a knife to kill The Driver in their final confrontation. Never a gun. In the final conflict between Mr. Rose and The Driver, both carry a knife and they both stab each other, like two scorpions.
Of course, The Driver has the fatal aim and takes down his opponent.
Earlier in the film, The Driver is watching a cartoon with Benicio.
‘Is he a bad guy?’ The Driver asks.
‘Yeah,’ Benicio replies.
‘How can you tell?’
‘Cause. . .he. . . he’s a shark.’
‘There’s no good sharks?’
‘No, just look at him. Does he look like a good guy to you?’
The Driver’s moments of violence throughout the film are frightening. There is a strangeness to him, and a savagery that he releases and pulls back that is unnerving. Does he look like a good guy to you when he is looming over a woman and he closes his gloved hand into a fist above her face? We know she was involved in the set up that got Standard killed, but it’s still unnerving. She is a woman and scared, and she’s also a pawn in the whole thing. She’s crying as he closes his fist above her face but he shows no empathy. He lingers over her after he lets her go. You wonder if he will strike at any moment.
He looks the part of a hero for a heart stopping few seconds in that iconic elevator scene. He draws Irene away from the man sent to hurt her and kisses her. A beautiful shot that seems to finally reward us with the hero’s romantic triumph. Only for it to be taken away moments later when he turns on the man in the elevator and stomps on his head until it’s a bloody pulp.
We can see this fear in Irene’s eyes. She backs away out of the elevator slowly. The Driver looks back at her with a vulnerable childlike look on his face. He knows he has lost his final opportunity with her and being a ‘real human being.’ He wanted to have the warmth of a normal relationship, like the Scorpion tried to have with the frog, but he sabotaged himself. He can’t help himself because he’s psychotic. It’s his nature.
A.P. Mekarnia 