The Drive

Running time: 76 mins

Three fresh-faced teens cruise aimlessly through the icy cold of a Canadian winter's night. They look innocent enough, but all is not well between Ted, Jim, and Lee Ann. Amidst their vitriolic, curse-filled exchanges, a palpable sense of sadness and self-loathing permeates the interior of the car. Bitterness from dashed young dreams and unfulfilled, immature fantasies hangs in the air like acrid smoke from a smoldering fire. While stopping briefly to buy beer, they are suddenly car-jacked by a gun-toting army vet with a seething anger of his own. With this menacing presence now in control, the car plunges deeper into the night, raising fear and danger to a very real level. The potential for violence and disaster seems to lurk around every gloomy corner. In The Drive, director Romy Goulen creates an effective sense of dread and claustrophobia, using the dimly lit confinement of the car to represent the personal prisons people--regardless of their ages--create for themselves. In an ironic turn-about, the symbol of freedom and the open road becomes nothing but a joyless box, out of which the only escape from its frustration and disappointment seems to be a violent and desperate act. --Pete Crane