#mini driver

This movie is, in its way, harrowing. It's hard enough to navigate a new world of dating and love with hormones surging, full of curiosity and desire, without living in a Catholic country where effective modes of birth control are banned and the "worldly" girl is taking her life in her own hands using the "rhythm method." Sadly, nobody tells this girl that the word for people who use the rhythm method is "parent."

Anyway, for some reason, I missed out on the fact that this a romantic drama, not a romantic comedy, and so was caught off guard a bit by the tone, but that's on me. Mini Driver is fantastic, as are all the leads--the performances are great across the board. Colin's character, Simon, is the Englishman who has an affair with Nan (Saffron Burrows), and that subplot had me wincing the whole time. Because of course she was going to end up pregnant and of course he wasn't going to marry her, but everything she understood about the world, all she'd been taught, left her blind to both those facts. Which is the tragedy of it, of course, and leads to the larger drama of Nan's engineering a marriage proposal from Chris O'Donnell's Jack.

Overall, I just don't have a lot to say about this movie or his performance. The movie itself is good, there's nothing wrong with it it--a good script, good direction, good acting, the drama was sufficiently dramatic and the end was satisfying, in that all the storylines were resolved nicely. Coin didn't have too much to do, except be the handsome guy who knocks up a girl, but the movie didn't make him the outright bad guy. He didn't seek her out, she engineered a situation that would result in them meeting for lunch. He never forced her to do anything, she was the one who calculated the "safe" dates and told him he could do whatever he wanted on those dates. He never promised her anything--but he didn't disabuse her of her more romantic notions of what was going on here, either. Since Simon is not the one in pursuit, there's no chance for charming seduction, and he's never cruel to her, so there's no real villainy either. So really...he's just a guy. and I guess he does a good job of being just a guy, but I think this is one of his less interesting roles.

Movie Review: 7/10--it's not on my list to watch again but objectively, it was a well-done movie with a good script and good performances. I don't know what the budget was, but it doesn't look cheaply made, and it's got a strong cast.