I saw ""Drive"" last week. Great film. It had a cool, 1980s feel, interesting camera angles and a fitting soundtrack. Seeing it was an all-around enjoyable time.
The casting was also impressive. For a guy who will always to me sound like a clown fish trying to find his son, Albert Brooks made a surprisingly convincing mobster. Ryan Gosling gave a performance so great I was almost entirely distracted from the fact that he radiates sex and Carey Mulligan was, as she tends to be, charming.
Still, one thing bogged me down. In ""Drive,"" Mulligan has a young son, probably around five or six years old. While the storyline suggests she had him at the age of 17, I couldn't help but feel she looked way too young to have a kid of that age. Perhaps it's because I've seen ""An Education"" a bazillion times, but the woman barely looks like she's old enough to have completed sex ed, let alone conceived, birthed and raised a child. (Who am I kidding? Maury taught me the one scenario does not need to follow the other.)
There is a reason why Mulligan looks so young. She has a baby face, a burden I too Carey (puns are punny). The baby fat has yet to evacuate my facial regions, making me look like—you guessed it!—a baby. OK, perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit, but I really do look younger than most people assume.
For example, whenever I go home for a weekend, my parents treat me to a trip to the supermarket. I stock up on cans of condensed tomato soup, Ovaltine and Scooby-Doo-shaped macaroni and cheese. (Note: Anyone who tries to convince you regular macaroni and cheese is better than shape macaroni and cheese is a Satan worshiper. Use caution when interacting with these fools.)
Because my mom is frightfully embarrassed by my nutritional choices, she will usually remark to the cashier, ""My daughter's headed back to college! She's gotta stock up!"" This excuse is always and without hesitation followed by the cashier turning to me and gasping, ""You're in college?! You don't look a day over 16!""
Awesome. Sure, my consumer choices don't imply maturity or a horizontal driver's license, but must the cashier—who is 14 years old, I might add—make such a big deal about it? To add insult to injury, I'm expected to take her revelation as a compliment. This would have been difficult to do when I was actually 16, let alone at the ripe old age of 21.
It doesn't end there. I've yet to frequent to a bar whose bouncer doesn't ask me for a second form of identification. My 17-year-old sister is always presumed to be the older of the two of us. And though I have a baby face, I still pluck an average of three gray hairs from my head each morning. Thanks genetics. Gold stars for you.
Based on my experiences, perhaps I'm too hard on Mulligan. The woman is beautiful and has a wardrobe I'd sacrifice kittens for. She's made out with Ryan Gosling in an elevator, and I have an uncle who slightly resembles Alan Rickman if you squint and cock your head to the right. Basically, she has way more going for her than I do. Still, if my plight in life is that I'll look like I'm 30 when I'm actually 40 years old, I can't complain. That is more money for juvenile food purchases and less for Olay Regenerist Cream. Boss.
Do you also have the cheeks of a cherub? Commiserate with Jacqueline at jgoreilly@wisc.edu.
