I’ve never experienced a more radically different reaction to a pair of successive films by a gifted director than in the case of Drive vs. Only God Forgives. And they both happened in Cannes. I literally levitated out of my seat during my Salle Debussy viewing of Drive, blissed and beaming, and I suffered like a dog — contorted, appalled and groaning — as I sat through Only God Forgives. But Refn is a serious filmmaker — I know that. And a gracious man. A few weeks ago I met him at a Fox holiday party and he was smiling and cool and amused, telling me on top of everything else that my God pan was a kind of compliment. That makes him one of the nicest directors I’ve spoken to under these circumstances since Anthony Minghella.