Drive with Ryan Gosling

MANILA, Philippines - Winner of the Best Director award in this year’s Cannes Film Festival, FilmDistrict’s critically acclaimed thriller Drive starring Ryan Gosling will be shown exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas (Glorietta 4 & Greenbelt 3) starting today. The film is directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and adapted from James Sallis’ 2005 novel of the same name.

In the film, Driver (Gosling) is a Los Angeles wheelman for hire, stunt driving for movie productions by day and steering getaway vehicles for armed heists by night. Though a loner by nature, Driver can’t help falling in love with his beautiful neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), a vulnerable young mother dragged into a dangerous underworld by the return of her ex-convict husband Standard (Oscar Isaac).

Producer Adam Siegel felt the driver was a rare character — someone who has a purpose, excels at one thing and makes no apologies for it. Producer Marc Platt agreed, noting that the driver reminded him of heroes and movie characters similar to characters Clint Eastwood used to portray.

“I was very taken with this little crime story that James Sallis wrote,” Platt adds. “I felt that the way the world was presented in the book demanded that its true grit be retained in the script. The grit comes from seeing the world from the point of view of Driver in the car. It’s those elements that I felt were critical to retain to make this film a very unique cinematic experience.”

Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Hossein Amini adapted the novel for the screen. He felt it was a rare book to receive from a studio because it was short, gloomy and like a poem. Because the novel does not present a linear story but has many flashbacks and jumps around in time, Amini found the adaptation challenging. He felt the non-linear structure made it “a very tricky structure” for a feature film.

Drive premiered on May 20, in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. At its first showing to the media, it received abundant praise and received “some of the best responses of the festival.” It was greeted with hoots and howls of joy from the media, with viewers cheering some of the scenes featuring extreme violence. Drive also received a 15-minute standing ovation from the crowd.

Likely, it served as a welcome relief to the press with previously serious-dramatic projects being shown earlier. Xan Brooks of The Guardian called the film his guilty pleasure of the 2011 competition, labeling it an enjoyable affair. “Over the past 10 days, we’ve witnessed great art and potent social commentary; the birth of the cosmos and the end of the world. Turns out what we really wanted all along was a scene in which a man gets his head stomped in a lift. They welcome it in like a long-lost relation,” he wrote. The festival named Refn Best Director for Drive.