Baby Driver's soul shines under its cool veneer

Ansel Elgort in Baby Driver. Image courtesy Sony.

It's tempting to just say Baby Driver is cool and call it a day. It definitely looks very cool, highlighted by some great action sequences and a killer soundtrack to boot. But “cool” often implies a lack of substance underneath the glittery surface, and a lot more resides under the cool action sequences and, again, that soundtrack for Baby Driver. There’s plenty of wit and soul to make it worth seeking out and watch a few times to catch those little bits that are easy to miss. It may look cool, but this movie is a bit dorkier than it initially lets on.

It is the modus operandi writer/director Edgar Wright, an incredible visual director who can never quite hide his inherent nerdiness. Even a movie as action-packed and intense as Hot Fuzz will still take a few moments to acknowledge the director's love for a terrible action movie like Bad Boys II. He does bury it a little deeper with Baby Driver though, kicking off with a thrilling opening sequence featuring a heist and some epic driving pulled off by the eponymous Baby (Ansel Elgort). He's not too far off from the prototypical nameless leads in movies like Drive and The Driver, men who are brilliant behind the wheel but can't perform once the engine cools off until they find the right woman. They’re designed to be cool guys who can only say exactly the right thing.

Baby isn't too far off from those characters either. He's awkward out in society, drowning out the world around him by blasting music from one of his many iPods to drown out what handler Doc (Kevin Spacey) describes as severe tinnitus. And Baby does eventually find that special woman who could shake him out of his doldrums in the waitress Debora (Lily James), who sees the good in the complicated, quiet man. But Baby's also a tremendous dork, choreographing to the music blasting into his ears and lip syncing love songs to his deaf adopted father Joseph (CJ Jones). Wright uses his lead character's dorkiness to contrast to the collection of coked-out crooks around him (Jon Hamm, Eliza González and a deranged Jamie Foxx), but also to separate him from the pack of quiet stoic men who came before. Baby isn't an empty husk and doesn't need to search for his humanity; he has his father to guide him and his music to keep his soul at peace.

Baby's connection with humanity is tenuous at best. Wright uses Baby Driver's soundtrack in so many different ways – from atmosphere to cuts to pure entertainment – it's easy to miss how much Baby needs it to survive in the world around him. The motivation for the music is a bit of a bait and switch, with Doc's exposition masking the actual motivation for Baby's obsession with his iPod. The realization that Baby has always needed his music to hide from the world makes him a tragic figure, providing the sentiment needed to keep the audience on his side even as he dips into the darker side of his nature. He needs that music to remain a step away from the terrible crimes he's abetting and to keep him somewhat grounded.

Baby Driver gets some interesting-to-great performances from Foxx, Hamm, Elgort and especially Spacey, but the female roles are underwritten to a discomfiting degree. It's not a problem Wright has had in the past – Shaun of the Dead, The World's End and Scott Pilgrim all have at least one complex female character – which makes it surprising how little James is given to do besides serve as the object of Baby's affection. Giving Wright a pass for it being a trapping of the genre is a little too easy as well; he subverts enough of the genre in this movie to make it an unacceptable excuse.

Wright also has a higher bar than many directors thanks to more than a decade of sustained excellence. Even his worst film, Scott Pilgrim, is a terrific comic adaptation and the best video game movie. Baby Driver is a little off the beaten path compared with the rest of his work, especially with the reduced emphasis on comedy, but the movie still fits in with what Wright has done before. His films whose exteriors – whether they be comedic or aesthetic – cover the complications that rest right underneath, and the dorky heart of their creator.

Review: Four and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 113 minutes

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: Anyone who is a fan of Edgar Wright and people down for some car movie madness.

Take the whole family?: This gets pretty bloody and violent, so it is best to leave the kids at home.

Theater or Netflix?: Definitely good or at least a matinee screening.

Is this movie funny?: It is, but not in the same way as the rest of Wright's filmography. The movie is a little darker than some of his previous works, less devoted to slapstick and watching Simon Pegg fall over fences. But Wright does maintain a few of his patented hidden sight gags to keep things fun, and there is a great reference to Monsters Inc. that pays off toward the end.

Watch this as well?: Anything from Wright is a slice of fried gold, highlighted by Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and the incomparable Hot Fuzz. There are also a decent number of similarities between this, The Driver and Drive to make for a great triple feature.

A most beautiful violence

Elle Fanning stars in The Neon Demon. Image courtesy Broad Green.

It’s rare to see a person walk out of a free film screening, yet the one I went to this week featured a fair number of people opting to do just about anything else than watch the rest of The Neon Demon. One woman directed a fair amount of vitriol toward the images on screen, muttering something along the lines that the film writer must be a sick person. On that end, she's absolutely correct in her assessment of director and co-writer Nicolas Winding Refn, a filmmaker whose unabashed love of retro visual artistry, violence and the peculiar make him a divisive figure in cinema. The assessment incorporates comparatively restrained pieces like Drive, Bronson and Only God Forgives; judging the man based solely on The Neon Demon would justify a diagnosis of some level of depravity or at least something amiss concerning the man's constitution.

Given all that, it is easy enough to sympathize with the woman as she left the theater in a huff, along with the others who trickled away as the film spiraled from the bizarrely obtuse into the oppressive macabre. The Neon Demon is a challenge to work through and an even more difficult film to stomach in its last 15 minutes. For those who can make it through, the experience is dizzying, dazzling and dense enough to perplex the smartest viewers. The Neon Demon is unforgettable in the most bonkers definition of the word.

The Neon Demon has the traditional trappings of a Grimm fairy tale taken to even more perverse levels. Elle Fanning stars as Jesse, an aspiring underage model who just arrived in Los Angeles to do something with her life. She’s effectively a fairy tale princess whose purity and beauty are coveted by the nefarious figures around her, most notably rival models Sarah (Abbey Lee) and Gigi (Bella Heathcote) and unseemly motel manager Hank (Keanu Reeves). The only pair of people seemingly on her side are quasi-boyfriend and good-enough guy Dean (Karl Glusman) and makeup artist Ruby (Jena Malone) who appear to serve as knights in shining armor if viewed from afar. Faith in these characters' valor diminishes once you peer in a little and realize one of the more notable lessons from fairy tales that trust is a dangerous thing to believe in.

There are a million places Refn could go with a premise like this. He could make it a morality tale, or about how simple it is to become disillusioned, or even a teen film about finding friendship through perseverance and goodwill. What he ends up doing is shocking and grotesque, worthy of the protestations of the woman leaving the theater. But this isn't necessarily a film built to forge an overabundance of disgust from the audience; Refn doesn't employ beautifully shot sex and violence and everything in between just because he can . He's making points with The Neon Demon about the unfairness of the modeling world, in particular the lengths women will go to retain, maintain or even steal beauty. Beauty is a fleeting thing in Refn’s world, an admirable trait that can neither be earned nor manipulated; in essence, you either are beautiful or you are not. Even those who do have it, like Fanning’s Jesse, are cursed to live in a constant state of danger from predators and jealous rivals. The Neon Demon is told through Jesse's perspective, but she's not the only one falling apart as she reaches for her dreams.

Los Angeles is a pretty perfect milieu for such a story, a place in which the divide between aesthetic perfection and blight is razor thin. Refn blurs the divide even more by twisting Los Angeles into a fun house of horrors. Mirrors capture many conversations and character interactions, sometimes portraying the more honest versions of the interactions than the ones not reflected off glass. All of those mirrors, along with Refn's love for pastel colors and otherwise intense lighting choices, utterly shakes viewers proper sense of perspective and sense of comfort. It serves as something of a mirror to the experience Jesse undergoes in her first few days in Los Angeles; a rush of emotions, sensations and overwhelming oddness crammed into a short window of existence. No matter how often Jesse protests against her innocent visage, she, like the audience, is not equipped to handle the cruel dream world Refn created.

Review: Four and a Half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 117 minutes

Genre: Drama

Ask Away

Target audience: Anyone who likes and can handle Nicolas Winding Refn films.

Take the whole family?: No. Just no.

Theater or Netflix?: This would make for a fabulous midnight film complete with a few friends and some strong spirits.

How well does Refn use the setting?: It's really a perfect fit for a man whose visual touch is his strongest talent as a director. The film is straight up gorgeous at times and always mesmerizing, with the glossy patina of the modeling world balancing perfectly against the grungy existence Elle Fanning's Jessie has before she joins the ranks of the elite. The visuals alone make this film worthwhile.

Watch this as well?: Two of Refn's more recent films, Bronson and Drive, are spectacular in their own rights and well worth checking out. The Neon Demon has a fairly similar vibe as another movie about woman being objectified in a niche industry, Black Swan.