...a warm, cozy, genial human drama that probably says in its own way as much about getting along with other people as any more overtly "message" film ever has.
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Every now and then the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences goes a tad haywire and makes an exception to its rule of only according Best Picture Oscars to films about epic battles, monumental disasters, heroic characters, historical figures, or mentally challenged persons. I mean, occasionally a gentle, unpretentious little film slips by with the Award, like 1989's "Driving Miss Daisy."
Written by Alfred Uhry, based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play, and directed by Bruce Beresford ("Tender Mercies," "Breaker Morant"), "Driving Miss Daisy" has a simple, straightforward plot line, free of cynicism or social criticism, which drove some reviewers to distraction because it wasn't weighty enough. What's more, its two stars were largely unknown in pictures. Jessica Tandy (as Daisy Werthan) had played supporting roles in films for well over fifty years but was mainly a Broadway star who was not too well recognized in movies; and Morgan Freeman (as Hoke Colburn) had been in movies for almost twenty years but only in minor or supporting roles, not yet achieving the stardom this film helped him achieve. Additionally, Dan Aykroyd (as Daisy's son, Boolie), while certainly acknowledged as a fine comic actor had seldom played straight, dramatic parts. So, the film's immense popularity and its winning several Academy Awards came as a surprise, nay, a shock, to a lot of Hollywood observers.
I'm tempted to call the film "heartwarming" if that term didn't convey a sense of the old-fashioned about it that might scare away younger viewers brought up on "Star Wars," "Pulp Fiction," and "True Romance." Instead, let me say the film is satisfying and rewarding in a purely dramatic, though sometimes humorous way. Anyhow, with stars like Freeman, Tandy, and Aykroyd in it, it couldn't go far wrong.
The movie's story line is incidental to the characterizations, a reminder of the movie's stage-play origins. It spans about twenty-five years in the lives of several Southern people living in Atlanta, Georgia, beginning in 1948. Miss Daisy Werthan (Tandy), a well-to-do, elderly widow living alone with only a combination maid/cook (Esther Rolle) for help, finds herself unable to drive her car safely anymore. Her son, Boolie (Aykroyd), hires an older black man, Hoke Colburn (Freeman), as her chauffeur. Although initially resistant to the idea of having someone drive her around, Miss Daisy eventually accepts Hoke's assistance, and after some years she strikes up a relationship with him that transcends mere employer-employee; by the time they have both reached a considerably old age, they have become best friends.
Despite the movie's title and Freeman's screen credit coming first, the movie is really about Miss Daisy. It is she around whom all the story's activities revolve and she who changes the most in the course of events. Her son describes Miss Daisy as "high strung," but that's too kind; in fact, she is a grouchy, crotchety old lady. After Hoke is hired, it takes him six full days to get Miss Daisy to allow him to drive her to the store; "...the same time it took the Lord to make the world," he remarks. Miss Daisy has a good deal of money and lives in a fancy house, but she wants no one to know how rich she is; her pride won't let her, and she revels in telling everyone about her poor upbringing. Miss Tandy won an Oscar for her dead-on performance.
Morgan Freeman was nominated for an Oscar but didn't win. Perhaps I'm just biased because I think Freeman is one of the best actors working today, but as much as I liked Daniel Day-Lewis in "My Left Foot," I'd have to say Freeman got robbed. It may be the best role he's ever undertaken, and one that appears custom-made for his soft-spoken talents. Hoke is good-natured and infinitely tolerant and long-suffering. In a wonderful bit of innocent reverse discrimination, when he first learns that Miss Daisy is Jewish, he assures her son that he has no objection to working for Jews. Just listening to Hoke talk makes one wish he were a member of your own family.
Aykroyd as the son, Boolie, is another story. It takes a while to get used to the actor in a serious role and to watch him age over the years. But keeping an open mind, one can see him fitting the part well, and his aging is convincing. Boolie is a prosperous Atlanta businessman who tends to his mother carefully. He tries to remain unaffected by the racial tensions around him, but we see it surface toward the end of the picture when he tells his mother it wouldn't be good for business if he accompanied her to a political speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boolie's wife, Florine (Patti LuPone), is less tolerant of life, though, and is often a sore trouble to her husband.
In an accompanying featurette, writer Alfred Uhry addresses one of the major criticisms leveled at the film over the years. People have suggested that the movie presents a false impression of the South in the mid-twentieth century because relationships between blacks and whites were not as relaxed and cordial as the ones presented in the story. Mr. Uhry counters by saying he based his characters on real-life people he knew--his own grandmother and her driver--and that he had always observed them behaving toward one another just as the characters do in his screenplay. I'm not sure, however, this doesn't say more about Mr. Uhry's perspective on things as a white man than it does anything else. The same argument he employs, for instance, could be said about the slaves' attitudes in "Gone With the Wind": that they appeared happy and content to their white masters. The fact is, blacks in the South generally worked in menial or servile positions throughout more than half of the twentieth century, and many of them in their ignorance of anything better probably were content. That doesn't make it right or good. Hoke himself in the movie is unable to read or write, a condition he is happily living with until it's pointed out to him.
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