Kristin Reviews Baby Driver

Edgar Wright, who wrote and directed Baby Driver, has a distinct directorial style. Not all directors do (oh, hush, all you auteur theory proponents out there), but Wright definitely does.

Here are some things Wright does really well:

• He makes unusual editing choices that give sequences a unique energy (even people who don’t “see” editing can feel the difference in an Edgar Wright film – they just don’t know why it feels different)
• He matches both action and editing cuts to music
• He surprises the audience with humor in otherwise gruesome or inappropriate moments
• He deliberately uses color cues to make statements about characters and choices

Until now, Wright has been best known for doing all of these things in straight up comedies in collaboration with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (notably the Cornetto Trilogy – you can Google it). With Baby Driver, he earns his place at the big kids’ table.

Baby Driver is fun to watch. Like, just really, really fun to watch.

The film is stylish. It’s surprising. It’s engaging. It's funny. It's suspenseful. It's romantic.

Also, the opening credits sequence, in which Baby exits a building, walks to a coffee shop, picks up four coffees for his criminal colleagues, and returns to the revolving door from which he emerged, is beautifully choreographed. And yes, in case you missed it, that was all a single shot.

Ansel Elgort’s performance as the getaway driver, Baby, who rarely speaks but comes alive when listening to his music, is dead perfect.

The only problem with Baby Driver is that, after setting the tone and holding true to it throughout most of the film, Wright takes the graphic violence a little too far off the rails toward the end.

That’s not an “I’m getting old and can’t handle the graphic violence in movies anymore” commentary.

An audience will accept just about anything in a movie, as long as it’s consistent to the tone of the film and the world the writer has created. While Baby Driver does create a world with shocking violence in it, the way the violence is wrapped in earlier scenes doesn’t match the wrapping during the climactic sequence. It’s difficult to explain, but if you watch the movie, you’ll see what I mean.

I could definitely see Baby Driver earning some nods this January. I predict an original screenplay nomination for Wright, and I think it has a good chance at editing and sound mixing as well.

Final Grade: A-

-Kristin
1.6.18