With three films at the Toronto International Film Festival, the Girls star has impressively found a way to both stand out and separate himself from the character that made him famous.
Jessica Miglio / Via Warner Bros.
For three seasons on HBO's Girls, Adam Driver's Adam Sackler has been entangled in a toxic, consuming, and unstable relationship with Hannah Horvath (Lena Dunham). Sure, Sackler has allowed Driver to show off his range: immense kindness when Hannah has a breakdown, anger when she won't give him space, and genuine and justified frustration at any given time in response to Hannah's behavior. But all of that is dependent on Hannah; Sackler doesn't exist without her. In Driver's three upcoming films that recently played at the Toronto International Film Festival — This Is Where I Leave You, While We're Young, and Hungry Hearts — he proves he can do much more than play off of someone else. He's the one who set the tone.
Though the 30-year-old actor has taken on other notable supporting roles since the public first met — and loved to loathe, or just plain loathed — Adam Sackler (Al in Inside Llewyn Davis, Lev in Frances Ha, and Allan in What If?), the film adaptation of Jonathan Tropper's popular novel This Is Where I Leave You — which had its world premiere at TIFF and opens nationwide on Sept. 19 — proves he can establish himself among such a large and much more seasoned cast.
Jessica Miglio / Via Warner Bros.
Though Tropper's story centers on Judd Altman (Jason Bateman) as he tries to piece his life back together after finding his wife in bed with his boss and then, in a matter of weeks, dealing with his father's death, it's the complicated relationship between the four Altman siblings that's the heart of the film. Judd, Phillip, Tina Fey's Wendy, and Corey Stoll's Paul are forced to reunite under the same roof for a week to sit shiva, a custom the nonreligious, but Jewish family is unfamiliar with, but does so to honor the final wish of their deceased dad.
As Phillip, the youngest of the four Altman siblings, Driver first appears racing up to his dad's funeral (late) in a Porsche. It's difficult not to think about Sackler when looking at sloppy, immature, reckless, and selfish Phillip. He's certainly similar to the initial version of Hannah's on-again-off-again boyfriend Girls fans were first introduced to in Season 1. But before the funeral is over, Sackler is nearly forgotten.
Positioned between ensemble veterans like Fey and Bateman, Driver isn't overshadowed. In fact, he's the one viewers' eyes are drawn to. In one of This Is Where I Leave You's most hilarious moments of (albeit substance-induced) levity, it's Driver's clowning around that is most appreciated, even while sharing the frame with Arrested Development's Bateman.
And Driver is also behind one of the movie's sweetest moments in which Phillip and Judd escape the hectic Altman home and take a drive in the Porsche. Phillip speeds hastily down the street, seemingly unconcerned with his surroundings, until Judd finally convinces him to stop the car so he can move into the driver's seat. But Phillip drives off before Judd can even finish closing his door behind him. What at first seems like a signature dick move is actually the opposite — Phillip knew exactly where he was going the whole time, intentionally stranding his brother directly in front of his crush Penny's (Rose Byrne) place of work. When he returns an hour later to pick Judd up, Driver plays Phillip with the perfect mix of smugness, pride, and kindness, without saying a word. And he gets the last laugh.
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