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With the Summer holidays ahead of him, Ben is uncertain how
to fill his time. His father is a mild-mannered vicar so he's
obliged to attend bible classes whilst his overbearing mother
encourages him to do his bit for the community and help at
an old people's home. However, when he goes to work for a
retired actress, the eccentric and unpredictable Evie, he
finds himself in a completely different world of experience.
She becomes the driving force to him discovering new-found
freedom and accompanying her to Edinburgh, he learns life-changing
lessons...
Driving
Lessons is
a touching coming of age movie starring Julie Walters as Dame
Evie Walton and Rupert Grint as Ben Marshall.
For the first half of the movie we see the world through the
eyes of Ben as a controlled teenager who is eager to stride
out on his own. He has a love of poetry - not something he's
particularly good at, but it's something that he feels at
home with. Grint's acting skills are put to the test here.
He starts off subtly reacting to his family and potential
girlfriend (and finally Evie) as they control him. It is only
when Evie finally forces him to stand up to her, and then
his mother, that he starts to realise that he can take control
of his own destiny.
While
Evie helps Ben to break away from his controlling mother,
Ben equally helps to pick Evie up from the gutter. Years of
alcoholism and having to prostitute her talent (her lowest
point saw her reduced to starring in a soap opera) have left
her a shadow of the Shakespearean actress she once was. And,
by introducing Ben to poetry, Shakespeare and alcohol, Evie
finds a new-found love of all she had taken for granted. It's
as though Evie sees something of her young self in Ben.
The
two are lost souls on the outside of society - neither fully
fitting in with their surroundings. Both are rather sad characters
who together help each other overcome many obstacles. I loved
the way that Evie's bizarre rescuing of Ben from his church
play mirrors Ben's early rescuing of Evie from a poetry recital
that goes rather badly.
To
be honest there isn't a bad actor in the whole of this movie,
nor a wasted second of screen time. The movie almost seems
to be written for Grint and Walters - you really can't imagine
anyone else having the same chemistry on screen. Laura Linney
and Nicholas Farrell also put in fantastic performances as
Ben's parents Laura and Robert. While Laura is an unhinged
control freak, Robert is a quiet, lost man more at home in
his church than with his own family.
The
movie sees the directoral debut of Jeremy Brock, and what
an introduction it is. He manages to convey so much more here
than many directors do in their entire careers.
Extras
are not overly exciting. There is an interesting audio commentary
with the director; an interview with Walters and Grint with
possibly the world's most annoying and useless interviewer
(think Andy Peters crossed with one of the Chuckle Brothers);
original movie trailer; and trailers for other movies. The
director, in his commentary, mentions a Making of featurette,
but there wasn't one in the extras menu so goodness knows
what happened to that.
It
was interesting to see the the soundtrack comes with a DTS
Surround option (as well as stereo and 5.1), but to be honest
this movie doesn't really warrant a DTS track - although it's
great to see that Tartan are making an effort for those with
good home cinema set-ups.
This
movie reaffirms why the whole of the UK fell in love with
Walter's years ago, and why Grint won't simply be remembered
in year's to come as that boy from Harry Potter - he
has got a promising career ahead of him because he can actually
act.
Driving
Lessons is one of those rare beasts - a feel good movie
that will continue to make you feel good for weeks after you've
watched it.
Darren
Rea
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