Baby Driver
B-A-B-Y.
+: this movie’s ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to its newsletter.
-: Kevin Spacey maybe a bit rote, Jamie Foxx kinda broad, not always my kind of music?
Two other films are worth bringing up at the outset here. The first is Edgar Wright’s own Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World (2010), released to cult acclaim and public indifference, owing to its desire to capture the tiniest section on any Venn diagram of pop culture demographics: vintage computer game fans, indie rock hipsters, and indie comic book fans.
Honestly? Even after seeing it, I understood the indifference. Scott Pilgrim either appeals or doesn’t, but there’s something about Edgar Wright’s directing style which didn’t seem to fit the story.
The other one is Whiplash (2015). The interesting thing about Whiplash is this — there’s not actually much of a plot, and the premise is, when analysed for even a moment, really fucking silly.
And yet. One thing Whiplash masters, utterly, is tone. The film is Miles Tellers’ manic drumming, with even music-free sections of it feeling ever-taut and ever-tense. It never lets up, because the slightest let-up would turn the entire thing into a let-down.
It’s a similar case with Baby Driver, which doesn’t have tension so much as an endless series of obstacles protagonist Baby (Ansel Elgort) might slam into but instead slides around. From the off, there’s trailer shots galore, but it transpires in the very first chase that the trailer’s been holding back, too.
Baby’s skillset — the ability to drive fast, weave through traffic, and lip read — renders him some kind of deaf version of Daredevil, and like most superheroes, he’s up against his own distaste for violence in a world filled with it.
If there’s an issue, it’s that the obstacles with wheels and rotors are often more compelling than those with legs. Kevin Spacey’s mob boss is a considerable threat, but turns out not to be one once things go sideways. And Jamie Foxx’s Bats engages in such cartoonish supervillainy than there’s no way he’s going to survive it. This should be Eiza Gonzalez’s breakout role, but I suspect it won’t quite happen — there’s not enough to hang on Darling.
But then there’s the music. Most of it isn’t my kind of music, but it is right in line with the film, which makes personal taste almost irrelevant. The John Spencer Blues Explosion’s “Bellbottoms” fits so well with one scene you’d imagine it was commissioned for the film. Run the Jewels similarly fits exactly with dark cars rolling through a multi-storey.
Will Baby Driver hold up on repeat viewings? I think it’ll diminish a little, but not much. Wright’s attention to detail, right down to actual set details, means it’ll keep having some resonance long beyond the cinema screen. I might be underrating things here, just in case. But whatever the film’s merits, the heart of it — played by CJ Jones and Lily James, one of which obviously isn’t from Atlanta, but hey — is, like Whiplash’s unrelenting tension, unrelentingly delightful.
