Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive tells the story of Driver (Ryan Gosling), a mysterious precision driver, who performs stunts in films. He also has an illegal business of driving criminals to and from crime scenes. The film shows the time in his life when he connects with his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan); he gets close to her son, and then offers to help her husband (Oscar Isaac) when he falls into trouble. As things go south for them, he exacts revenge on the perpetrators of the harm done to the family. Without a back story, the guy is like a literal ghost, and his journey of retribution could be for sins committed in the past or the present.
Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter tells the story of William Tell (Oscar Isaac), a gambler who plays to “pass the time,” instead of getting rich. He’s an ex-military man, recently out of jail after being wrongly convicted for crimes he didn’t perpetrate, but where he was a willing participant. He’s contacted by the son (Tye Sheridan) of another man in his unit who died in service. As Tell tours, he is followed by a mysterious woman (Tiffany Haddish), who keeps asking him to join her team so they can pull off large wins. Motivated by his wish to do good for the world in which he’s responsible for contributing to sorrow, he navigates his nightmares and the gambling world, while the chance presents itself through his late military mate’s son.
From a very wide perspective, these stories are about personal retribution. Driver wishes to atone for the harm done to the family on account of his presence near them, while Tell wants to atone for letting injustice grow and even participating in it. Moreover, both Driver and Tell have got the talent to accomplish bigger things. Neither do illegal activities for personal gain, but for their own leisure. They are both immaculate in appearance, have a very strict work ethic, and are almost meticulously organized. They wield their loneliness like a weapon, not recklessly, but as a means of securing their lives. However, neither is cold, and both become willing to go the distance for anyone they deem deserving.
Tell wraps all the furniture in sheets to not leave traces of his presence. The Driver literally stays unnamed to maintain anonymity. Both of them are procedural and punctual. Their passions are well -hidden under the mask of professionalism until someone does something to personally trigger a response from them. In that case, there’s absolutely no restraint. The violence that they’re capable of is shocking — Irene is scandalized by Driver’s ruthless murder of the man in the elevator, and Lieutenant Gordo’s murder at Tell’s hands proves that while the man may have left his past life of inflicting pain for a profession, the skillset has become ingrained in him.
Apart from the stories and the characters, the films have some similarities in their style, too. Drive has a dreamy metallic colour palette. The film looks very stylish, with Driver’s glossy white jacket and his leather gloves, drone shots of the city at night, dimly lit elevators, moody sunset sepia light, and bright red interior décor of the strip club dressing room. The Card Counter depicts a similar metropolitan lifestyle in similar locations, but the colour palette is less metallic and grainier to reflect its grittier world, with themes of human torture and war crimes explored in its narrative rather explicitly. But it’s also stylish in its own way, with Tell’s greying hair well-complemented by his black leather jacket, the bright green canvas boards, dark red tables, the psychedelic drone photography of the theme park, shiny casino lobbies, and blinding white interior décor of Tell’s hotel room with all the furniture wrapped in the blankets.
The cinematography of the two films is much more similar. Both have extended tracking shots, especially when introducing a character and showing him walking into a place for the first time. There is no cut in the first scene where the Driver meets Irene, and it follows them till Irene walks into her apartment. Similarly, the camera follows Tell in the first scene where we see him walk into a casino to meet an old pal. These are not one-off instances, but just like the meandering extended shots, both films have abundant use of fast cuts. The opening montage of The Card Counter, where the narrator introduces us to his life, cuts every time a new hand is played and the prison scenes are also like video collages, with the camera sitting still between cuts. Similarly, the opening scene of Drive introduces us to the Driver’s world through a fast-cutting chase sequence.
These two stylistic speeds complement the storytelling, with character introductions or location introductions being done with tracking shots so as to impress the viewer in a way that reflects the characters or the setting’s charms. The slower pace is used for intense or expositional conversations as the lack of camera movement keeps the eye movement to a minimum, and more attention can be paid to the subject that always occupies the frame with each cut. Both films also feature extended shots with minimal camera movement, like when Bill pads the apartment with the blankets or whenIrene and Driver softly speak to each other in Irene’s apartment. Here, the emotion is the focus or an astute observation is being made, so neither a cut nor a tracking shot will do justice to the intention of the scene.
Beyond the surface, these two films essentially feel connected. Tell is representative of the system that creates disgruntled and dangerous people and doesn’t provide them with an outlet for the damage done. He’s the face of the rebellion to reclaim identity after being turned into a weapon without a target. Meanwhile, Driver represents the others, the ones the system didn’t even consider worthy of acknowledgment. They’re anonymous ghosts because they don’t fit into their respective status quos. With an enviable skill set, the Driver is able to negotiate the light and the dark worlds, reaping the benefits of both. On the other hand, Tell has been damaged to the extent he’s afraid to mingle in society lest his training turns vindictive, so much so that he chooses captivity in a routine where he doesn’t have the freedom to cause real harm to the world. The Driver hasn’t been given the respect he deserves for his talents, and instead of feeling guilty over choosing crime, he is leading the rebellion against the system that decides which people deserve a life and which don’t.
The films feel so connected because one can extrapolate that Driver and Tell are the same people, only different because of their circumstances. Their discipline, dress sense, lack of humor, and ruthlessness aren’t just similarities, they are culminations of similar personalities. If Tell wasn’t a military man and was rejected by the academy, he may have found a different use for his latent abilities, which one can expect would be in a life of crime. Similarly, if Driver had been picked up from the streets and employed for espionage, he’d have fit right in, and would eventually have to come to terms with his lifestyle if he realized one day that his activities were endangering some very real people. The philosophies of the characters are essentially the same. They’re both motivated by their belief that the system deserves no sympathy. The Driver chooses to pursue this, by participating in crimes to disrupt the functioning of the system, which is why he eventually leaves instead of surrendering, driven by the understanding that as ruthless as he is, the system is much more ruthless. Tell, on the other hand, chooses to live and let live, because he’s convinced that he’s so far gone that even trying to avenge the system will cause more harm, thus the choice to surrender to law enforcement.
Essentially, the only distinction between Driver and Tell is the hope for a better future. Tell has a hope that the world can become a better place, probably born of the discontinuation of his unit, while Driver is convinced it’ll continue to deteriorate. This is why Tell has a worldly guilt, and his journey of retribution, even if it culminates in forcing a kid to live honestly, is actually about trying to improve the world in general, helping out anyone he can, although he chooses not to go out of his way as he’s scared of himself. Driver’s conviction of the horror of reality is what created his guilt, particularly about the woman he met and her family. He doesn’t repent for being a criminal, just for being one who brought such a heartbreaking tragedy to the family he was beginning to enjoy the company of. That’s another reason Tell finds solace in prison, born of his fear of himself, while Driver drives off into the night, convinced there are more criminals worse than him out there who he has to stop from harming more innocent families.
This similarity in mission statements, contrasted by the disparity in their perceptions of themselves, makes the films thematic siblings. The worlds look and feel different, but again, Drive’s stylishness seems to be a reflection of Driver’s conviction in his actions, and in contrast, Tell’s guilt is why The Card Counter’s world seems to be a little bit rougher and more haunting. There is gore abound when they meet the human manifestations of their demons, but there’s a subtle difference in mindset as made clear by the conclusions of the stories. The man in charge of others’ confinements became comfortable in confinement, but the one in charge of others’ freedoms chose his own freedom in the end. The journey of righting wrongs for both is sacrificial in nature, and neither accepts the love they might deserve. This eventuality of loneliness defines their existence.
