Driving Lessons
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Movie Reviews of Driving Lessons
Movie Review: Awkward, coming-of-age dramedy
Summary: 3 Stars
I watched Driving Lessons, starring Rupert Grint, Laura Linney, and and Julie Walters, this week. Though it definitely had its maudlin/trite moments, it's worth seeing for Julie Walters' great performances and to take a look at what Grint can do minus his Hogwarts wand.
Grint plays Ben, a 17-ish young man with an overbearing mother (Linney, though it's not her best work). Ben's mom, a priest's wife, makes it her personal mission to take care of all the aged people in their neighborhood, and she enlists Ben's help in caring for them. She also demands a strict schedule of driving lessons (administered by herself, of course) so that Ben can earn his license (which has been, thus far, elusive). Finally, she suggests that Ben get a summer job so that he can contribute his income to helping another one of his mother's projects - an older man who accidentally ran over his wife and is now living with them until he "recovers."
In this suffocating environment, Ben takes a job as the assistant to an aging actress, Evie (Walters). Evie is the original free spirit, mixed with equal parts vanity, insecurity, short temper, and loneliness. The two are oddly compatible, and Ben soon begins learning all kinds of things about life from Evie's quick one-liners and current struggles.
Though I thought the script could have been a bit tighter, and I thought that Grint's character could have undergone more meaningful change, I liked this film. Walters is amazing in it, and she clearly anchors the whole production. (With a lesser actress in this role, the whole film would have come tumbling down.) Grint has the hunched, insecure, shy act down pat, but I longed to see more of a transformation in him during the course of the film. Also, I would like to see Grint eventually play a character more dramatically different from Ron Weasley. If he doesn't do so, and soon, he will be relegated to this character type for a while.
Worth watching for the one-liners and for Walters' performance.
Movie Review: Driving Miss Evie...
Summary: 3 Stars
Learning to do anything is difficult, particularly if your Mom is your teacher. In this case, Ben (Grint) has a serious problem because his Mom (Linney) mostly wants him to take her over to see her new boyfriend. The only break this poor kid gets is when aging actress, Evie (Walters) hires him as a general helper.
I love British comedy and got this movie thinking it was more of the same, but there's a lot of bitter reality served up with the laughs. Grint does a good job growing up and getting away from his Ron Weasley role in this coming of age film. Ms. Walters is amazing as always as Evie--and she does her own coming of second age in this drama. "Driving Lessons" is an interesting drama is just not as much escape humor as I would have hoped for.
Movie Review: JEREMY BROCK, OPUS 1
Summary: 3 Stars
*** 2006. Written and directed by Jeremy Brock. London. Ben Marshall's father is a minister and his mother a woman more interested in the social activities of the parish than in Ben's life. So when Ben meets Evie Walton, an aging actress, he also finds in her an attentive friend who'll help him to become an adult. Nothing really original in this film but noteworthy performances by Laura Linney and, above all, by Julie Walters as the alcoholic Evie Walton. The satirical description of the domestic life of a religious British family is also funny at times. In short, DRIVING LESSONS is a coming of age movie worth a viewing. Not bad but already forgotten.Movie Review: Driving Lessons
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a very good film about a relationship between a young man and an older woman. It is not a romance, but the two share some great moments. Rupert Grint and Julie Walters fans will enjoy this one!Movie Review: different, but not boring
Summary: 3 Stars
Julie Walters was remarkable in this semi-decent movie that blundered about at times, but was overall quite interesting to watch. And this movie proves that Rupert Grint can, in fact, act.