#spoilers for the movie Drive (2011) with Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan. Also mentions of #violence and #blood. Each time I watch Drive (which is multiple times a week), I'm held liable to the understanding of disposability in love and self-identity. Doomed timelines, irrefutable fate, and a dangerous tango between the polar opposite cosmic dualities of one's self-assessment. If the word ambiguous could hold a heavier crown and gracefully encompass the level two realities disrupting peace by co-existing in tandem, it would be the best descriptor for the complexities of its plotline. A man, cursed by his inevitability. A scorpion who cannot fight its vicious nature, even when it's in its own best interest. As a destroyer class and a heart player my entire existence has been to be a martyr. I know if I board the ship it will sink, so I do it anyway and save everyone on board. The Titanic would have never given Leonardo DiCaprio his biggest role had it not gone down. There was a giant awareness brought to passenger safety to which every cruise ship from that point on was required to increase the number of lifeboats on the vessel. It also established ice patrols internationally which was founded to detect icebergs in the Artic and Atlantic sea. Watching Driver live a separated life gives another layer of protection from his character. He compartmentalizes every aspect of his day, from his daylight jobs as a cool aesthetic stunt driver and a quiet mechanic to his night jobs as a tabooed love interest to a married woman and a meticulous getaway driver for robberies. The minute he blends these worlds in the elevator or takes the fatal heist in the daylight are the moments where destiny annihilates his known realities. It's like being on Dancing With The Stars and curb stomping your partner on stage. The judges are going to judge you. And by judges I mean Irene, because as the elevator scene drew to an end the awareness she's forced into removes any compassion she once had for Driver. Can't blame her on a normie tolerance rating. Not everyone is as desensitized to blood and violence as a dark brooding few of us. Watching Driver struggle to subvert the idea that he himself is a bad guy tugs at my fucking chest in ways I'm never prepared to deal with. He views himself on the edges of evil, not fully submerged in it. "My hands are a little dirty," is a line that most accurately frames his view on himself. He's only a little bad. He's only a little criminal. He's a getaway driver, not a robber. The heist during the day brings that dark and hidden side of him into the light, and is faced in the motel when Driver realizes the ignorance in his own hubris was at the cost of the family that was the only line of his own perceived innocence. When it becomes clear to Driver that he will never get the chance at infiltrating this awkward family and living peacefully, he goes for broke with the dramatics of a yearning Shakespearian teenager, kisses the girl, and immediately cements his future by burying a boot in the skull of the enemy. As cliche and cringe as it is to compare oneself to their favorite movie character, I feel a palatable kinship with Driver. Destruction is in my nature. Like the antithesis to Midas, everything I touch breaks. I'm aware that everything good I have will eventually crumble, because it's in my nature to make sure it does. Happiness is temporary, and like Driver I embrace the sunshine while holding the knife-hole in my gut. All this is to say I'm going for a drive.
