Driving Lessons (2006)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Pretty Good

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Ben Marshall (Rupert Grint) delivers meals for the elderly on his bicycle. He's not a good driver and fails his test. Laura (Laura Linney) is his religious mother obsessed with charity work. She won't let him have a cell phone since it causes cancer. She's having an affair with Peter from the church. His mother urges Ben to earn money for the family and he answers an ad placed by Evie Walton (Julie Walters). Evie is a flamboyant former actress. Ben is the opposite. He writes sensitive poems for his crush Sarah (Tamsin Egerton) but she thinks it's weird.This coming-of-age adventure relies on the actors to deliver the familiar character types. Grint has a good awkwardness but his screen presence is still not at star level. Walters is a little too prickly. She needs more fun in addition to her wild bitter drunkenness. Linney delivers some wild jabs and one or two actually land the mark. This is mostly light quirky but it rarely truly gets hilarious.

This is the stupidest movie I've seen in a very long time. All the characters, everything that happens to them, everything they do, and every word they speak is irritating, absurd and completely unbelievable.Rupert Grint and Nicholas Farrell are the only actors who show any restraint at all - Farrell probably from a strong innate sense of proportion and Grint probably from inexperience. But both Laura Linney and Julie Walters are so hammy that they made me cringe every time they opened their mouths.It's not their fault; it's the writer-director Jeremy Brock, whose moronic screenplay and ham-fisted direction are so annoying that I'm amazed to see that he continued to get work after making this awful movie. I haven't seen any of his other movies, and after suffering through this one I'll make sure I never do.

The 2006 film "Driving Lessons", by Jeremy Brock was a crazy, and entertaining movie. The main character was Ben. Ben was a very weird person, and he was his mom's puppet. The plot in the film was for Ben to learn how to drive so that he could get his driver's license. Bens mother Sarah was always in Bens ear, and always telling him that god would take care of everything, but in reality his mother was actually crazy. "My mother's gonna kill me. You don't understand". This shows that Sarah basically controlled her son's life. Sarah couldn't teach Ben how to drive because she was too irritating for Ben. Ben met his future best friend; Dame Evie Walton. Evie was a washed up actor that was always drunk. Ben would go over her house to help her out with her garden when she needed help. Sarah was jealous of Evie because she was getting all of Ben's attention. Evie told Ben that she was dying to give Ben a sign saying that he should live life to the fullest, and not be a puppet. Ben's mother and father were in the middle of a divorce, and that's another reason that his mom wanted all of Ben's attention. She felt like she was losing her son to Evie, and she started to keep Ben away from Evie. Without Ben, Evie felt more alone than ever because Ben was her only real friend. She turned backed to getting drunk, and making a fool of herself because no one was there to guide her on the right path. It was a key. "I swallowed it. Frankly, you should be flattered! Now... I insist you have a drink". The film didn't get interesting until the end. Toward the end, Ben started to grow up, and started to become his own person. Ben left an important event to go see Evie because he knew that he could always be his self around Evie. He knew that Evie was more important than any dumb old play. Once Sarah realized what was going on, she was furious. She attempted to try to get Ben back, but Mr. Finchum ended up hitting her with the car out of nowhere. This was a part in the movie that I didn't really understand. Once Sarah was injured, she really wanted Ben's attention, and Ben had no choice but to give it to her. Ben let Sarah know that he was going to be his own man, and that he learned how to drive with Evie. Auld Lang Syne was the song at the end of the movie. Auld Lang Syne was a song meaning a new beginning. The song would be played on new years. Ben grew courage, and even told the girl of his dreams to buzz off. Ben felt rejuvenated, and he felt like a brand new person. Ben felt like there was a new beginning. Ben never got his driver's license. This was the main point of the movie, and it made no sense why they didn't stay on topic. mail.plymouthed.org

Driving Lessons is a typical release in the "quirky misfit finds quirky mentor" subgenre of the coming-of-age film, and after the 2000s, this particular kind of movie isn't much to look at. While this particular kind of film might seem inspirational to some, seeing these same character types interact in this manner ends up being clichéd and just plain tired. However, this film has power in its execution, and it provides a delightful atmosphere; even at its bleakest, it has hope and a wonderful lust for life, which ultimately makes this film genuinely enjoyable. This film is about introverted Ben Marshall, who in-between learning how to drive takes up a job serving retired actress Evie Walton, who deals with her own personal demons. He struggles to stay true to his religious family while learning how to thrive with Evie's eccentric guidance. Rupert Grint and Julie Walters make this film work, and although their characters may seem archetypal, their performances hold up the rest of the film. At least for me, it was an honest delight to watch their relationship grow from the beginning to the end. Both Grint and Walters play the respective roles of Ben and Evie with so humbled and warm that it just feels good to watch these two in action. However, the rest of the films' aspects are lost in the wake of the two leads; the other characters are in my opinion somewhat underdeveloped; even though they are refreshing, we only get that in bursts and it doesn't nearly seem as natural as Grint and Walters' performance. The film's main theme of driving your own destiny and being your own advocate are tired; although writer/director Jeremy Brock puts this point across, it's stale; the audience can understand a theme, but it takes a little more effort to make it memorable than I felt Brock gave in the final product. Fortunately, a lot of what is missing in this movie is strengthened by a truly unique script; Jeremy Brock apparently based much of it on his own experiences working for British actress Peggy Ashcroft; maybe it explains why this portion of the plot seems stronger than the other half featuring Ben's religious family, but it does allow for some good emotional grab. The soundtrack is decent, nothing to write home about or detract from, but the inclusion of a band like Salsa Celtica is unique for something so explicitly British. We do also get to see a lot of the United Kingdom's countryside, which serves for a lot of good imagery. All in all, Driving Lessons, while not particularly groundbreaking or otherwise ingenious, is an enjoyable, pleasurable film. I do believe it could have stood more development in the sense that it could have more to say, but is a treat to watch nonetheless, and is something I think would be a good choice for a positive watch.