Although the title suggests a movie about cars, “Drive – The Pretenders” focuses more on romance than intense car racing. The German romantic drama was released on Prime Video on Wednesday, Oct. 28.
It shares a familiar romantic storyline, featuring a love-contract. However, some parts of the story move too quickly, and a few important moments do not get enough attention or time to develop.
The story follows Sarah Jenkins (Lisa-Marie Koroll), whose father trained her as a racer since childhood, but currently works as a mechanic for a racing team. She is a talented racer and is working hard to become a professional driver. Meanwhile, Dante Annunziata (Amin Baahmed) is a well-known race driver who is facing problems surrounding his public image and relationship with Jenkins. The two agree to pretend to be engaged, but they gradually develop fire and their love for each other.
The acting makes a common plot interesting and vivid. The leads have chemistry. Koroll stood out to me and her athletic appearance accords with Sarah’s background in racing.
One of the significant scenes that helps audiences dive deeper into the characters is when Dante talks about his past, more specifically, his sister, and viewers learn more about him and his motives. From my view, this scene is important because it shows a more personal side of his character and helps audiences understand his relationship with Sarah. However, I wish the film could spend more time on similar moments.
The film also shows the characters’ personal problems and strong career goals, in addition to their relationship. However, some of these relationship scenes feel rushed. Certain storylines seem important at first, but the film moves before they are fully developed. By the time I started to care more about the characters, the film was already close to its ending, and some scenes could have had a stronger effect if they were given more time. I noticed this most clearly near the end.
The main conflict is resolved very abruptly. Since the film spends a lot of time evolving Sarah and Dante’s relationship, I expected the ending to give the final conflict more attention. If the ending had moved more slowly, it might have been more satisfying.
I also noticed that the film does not show as much racing as I expected. Although the story takes place in the racing world, there are not many scenes of driving. Most of the film is about Sarah and Dante’s relationship, so it feels more like a romance set in the racing world than a movie about racing itself.
I don’t think this is necessarily a problem for viewers who mainly enjoy romantic films. However, people who are more interested in racing may wish there were more scenes on the track.
Overall, I enjoyed watching “Drive – The Pretenders.” I liked the two main characters and the scenes that showed their lived experiences.
Rating: 4/5