The best sight gag in The Dead Don't Die, which is currently in theaters, is when Adam Driver shows up driving a smart car, folded up into his compact two-seater like a creaky Murphy bed. Watching one Adam Driver getting out of a smart car is as funny as watching two dozen circus clowns getting out of a Volkswagen Beetle. There's no other way to read his choice of car than as a way of overcompensating for a surfeit, rather than a deficit, of masculinity.
But that does not exhaust the subject. If the way Driver used his body in his performances existed solely to seed viral thirst posts, then, y'know, dayenu—but in that case, he would have nothing to apologize for, no reason to scrunch his legs up like that in a car that's too small for him. Adam Driver is nobody's Large Adult Son, nobody's Beautiful Enormous Meme Boyfriend.
Now, Driver is big in a way that suggests functional strength and a retrograde paleo-masculine disinterest in eating healthy or doing pointless, vain cardio; look at the Ben Swolo meme, and you'll see big, functional muscles underneath a torso thickened like a grown-ass man's.
But it is a neck, even if it's a zombie neck. Later, at the town's motel, Ronnie has the chance to swing at a few more necks. Some hipsters who were passing through Centerville have, it transpires, been eaten, and he decapitates them before they can return as zombies. His fellow officer, Chloë Sevigny, is squeamish: Does he really have to do this? He does, but she provides a humanizing counterweight—a recognition that this work really is dirty, is brutal and disgusting.
this is an amazing article! a beautiful synthesis of why Mr Driver is so captivating in his performances, and why Paterson is That Movie ™
thedeaddontdie This article is so refreshing and well written! I enjoyed every second of it. ❤️