Baby Driver, Edgar Wright (2017)

Baby Driver, new cinematic car chase romp from Edgar Wright, is as thrillingly romantic as it is stylishly pastiche. Paying homage to films such as Breathless, Bonnie and Clyde and True Romance, Baby Driver takes Jean-Luc Goddard’s idea that all you need for a movie is a gun, a girl and a car chase and takes it to whole other original level, reminding us how films used to thrill us without the use of superheroes and CGI. With it’s stellar cast and feet-tapping soundtrack, Edgar Wright packs a punch with this highly self-aware and hedonistic frolic.

Ansel Elgort plays Baby, the getaway driver for a team of heist men. When we first see Baby, he has his headphones in and sunglasses on. Much like the audience, he is shut off from the outside world as he waits for the action to start. Jon Spencer’s Blue’s Explosion’s intro to “Bellbottoms” begins and then its wham bam give-me-the-money thank you mam. It’s like the action can’t start without the soundtrack or Baby wouldn’t be able to dance along. We are whooshed away in a momentum building, skidding round corners, full of near misses car chase which doesn’t hold back.

Having opened with a bang, we then begin to hear what Baby hears through his headphones and are transported into a musical world where Baby finds refuge. Bob & Earl’s "Harlem Shuffle" then accompanies a charming sequence in which Baby shuffles down the street on his way to get a morning coffee as words from the song appear on random posters or street graffiti in the background. It’s a very familiar Hollywood scene; the feel good musical number that signifies some symbolic win for the protagonist. And we enjoy it shamelessly. Even though we’re not yet invested in the character, we are allured by his charm, the thrill of the heist but most of all the synergetic soundtrack.

Baby is lissom, mysterious and a voluntary mute. Speaking only when spoken to, Elgort manages to brush off the smugness and instead ooze 60s Clyde Barrow cool. He’s every romantic girl’s dream and every guy’s role model; a badass driver with an enigmatic charm, Baby doesn’t even have to say anything to have Debora falling in love with him.

Kevin Spacey’s character, Doc, is the smug crime boss that knows everything and plays the character in a similar vein to his character on House of Cards; brutal, witty and unwavering in resolve. However, there’s a protective fatherly like quality to his cruelty, always ready to have Baby’s back should any of the other heistmen try to knock him down.

And then there’s the romance which moves as fast as Baby drives with all the thrills of spontaneity, sacrifice and redemption through love. Debora, played by Lily James, is in contrast to Baby, chatty and happy-go-lucky but equally genetically blessed and in love with music. She sings “B-A-B-Y” by Carla Thomas while serving customers at the diner and speaks of riding off in a car she can’t afford with a plan she doesn’t have. Her character is somewhat shallow and unrealistic but her infatuations match Baby’s and that’s enough for them to promise themselves to each other. Totally senseless yet swooningly romantic.

Edgar Wright is a miracle world maker where the irrational runs free and the senselessness of characters lets us live out our corporeal fantasies. Baby Driver is a stupendous feat of choreography and speaks to our bodies through the rhythm of the music synchronised to every movement of the frame, from slamming car doors to skipping down the street. It also evokes a nostalgia in all of us; of the legacy of decades of stylistic film-making that has trickled down and been filtered out since but through its modern paint job has enabled us to experience the clichés in a new postmodern context. In other words, its a 60s fan boy romp.