Drive is a 2011 neo noir – arthouse – action film by Nicolas Winding Refn and one of the best films I have ever seen. This Impulse contains spoilers for the film so if you haven’t watched I highly recommend to do so.
Film Summary: The unnamed protagonist Driver is a stunt driver who works as a getaway driver at night. He meets his neighbor, Irene, and her son and they become close. But things take a dangerous turn when he gets involved in a heist that goes wrong. To protect Irene and her son from the criminals involved, he has to navigate through a world of violence and betrayal, putting his own life at risk to keep them safe
Driver: „You know the story about the scorpion and the frog? Your friend Nino didn’t make it across the river.”
From Drivers point of view it becomes obvious that he thinks of himself of the Scorpion. This also implies that everything bad he has done previously is just his nature. Even though the action of killing someone comes rather easy to him the consequences that come out of it show that killing is not his nature and that the scorpion is probably not him himself but sitting on his back preparing to sting him.
Goslings character starts out as someone who is in total control of everything indicated by the perfect escape from the police in the opening scene of the film. However when Irene and her son enter his life he slowly learns that he is not in control of everything especially not his own emotions and feelings.
As Gosling himself put it Driver is a character who has seen to many films and became a captive in his own head. And you got to give it to him. There is just something about Ryan Gosling playing the detached loner longing for meaning. I have never seen an actor portraying that feeling of loneliness and being a captive of his own feelings as well as Ryan Gosling does it. Blade Runner 2049, some parts of La La Land or Drive are perfect of examples of this.
In Drive there is grave difference from the in-control, emotionally disconnected person executing the perfect get-away to someone who is violently shaking while smashing in someone’s Hand and shoving a bullet down his throat. Driver can’t escape his life. The only scene where he briefly escapes it and pulls Irene aside to kiss her before violently smashing the hitmen’s head in is borderline reality. The way the camera and the lighting work in this scene it can be assumed that the kiss only plays out in Drivers head and the frustration about not being able to live with Irene leads to his overreaction of kicking the hitman even though he is long dead resulting in Irene realizing what he actually is.
But does this really make him the scorpion. I would argue that the scorpion is on his back, also implied by his jacket he is wearing throughout the film. This could be in form of Bernie which would make a lot of sense. Since Driver let’s himself be stabbed by Bernie in the end before killing him.
I would however argue that Driver is his own Scorpion. He is never in control and so caught up in his own imagination of himself that he doesn’t realize that he barely ever takes a conscious decision before the point of already being involved with people whose hands are actually dirty compared to his hands which are only a little dirty. He only starts to take control to save Irenes life sacrificing their future of being together.
