Driveways

This is one of the cinematic gems you find every once in a while when you're poking around looking for something good. This is it. Dennehey gave a tender, thoughtful performance here and was backed up by fine support from Lucas Jaye and Hong Chau. Highly recommend.

Halfway film that helps to establish the films central relationship. Up until this point, the story kind of plugs along at a really slow pace. Once this moment hits (revolving around a birthday party), the film finds something pretty special.

The story follows a struggling single mother and her 8 year old child as they have to take care of her sisters estate. Arriving as strangers to this town, a very cluttered house, and a quiet, they meet the quiet, elderly man who lives by himself next door. As the 8 year old son lingers in the shadows of a mom who is barely hanging on, he begins to gradually strike of a friendship with the man next door.

The performances are really subtle, but once this relationship begins to establish itself, the chemistry between the young boy and the elderly veteran emerges as something very genuine and honest. They are by far the best part about this film, which leans into a very understated script.

It's the symbolism of the driveways though that hits the hardest. In some sense you have a young man who has his whole life ahead of him. On the other end you have a man who is nearing the final years of life. Separated by driveways, these journeys find a way to intersect through shared expeience. Both are lonely, and both find needed companionship in the other. And both are able to breathe new life into these shared perspectives from their side of the journey.

Trust me when I say, if you are someone who is touched by these kind of multi generational stories you are guaranteed to find a few tears here, even if the story itself doesn't blow you away. And that is a testament to the films heart, which it has in spades.

"Drive a little slower. Take your time. Take a good look at stuff." Del (Brian Dennehy)

Driveways is an internet film taking its time letting us know that friendship and love have no racial or age boundaries. We've seen this motif before: 8-year-old Cody befriends laconic octogenarian neighbor Del (it's not too much Gran Torino or UP) with the least sentimentality among the three and the least dialogue.

Yet, the love that envelops them, even with Cody's single Asian-American mom, Kathy (Hong Chau), who is not a stirring mother, is so unprepossessing that like Cody at his 9th birthday, life has happened in small increments, almost imperceptibly. The life including bullying kids and cleaning up a recently-deceased Aunt's mess of a home takes on a romantic sheen as the duo experience kindly neighbors and a comfortably-cleaned home.

In a small way it's like Seinfeld without the laughs-it's about nothing or rather the little things of life that begin to make up a happy life. Firecrackers in the backyard by the bully boys seem more like a celebration of a new life for Kathy and Cody than a bombardment. It's also a fine addition to the coming-of-age canon, a staple from Star Wars through Driveways.

It's one of Brian Dennehy's last roles (he recently died), but one of his finest because it doesn't require him to use his former football- player heft or his menacing sheriff mien as in First Blood. The friendship between Cody and veteran Del is the real deal. Del has one nostalgic speech that you wish more of because he is talking, as in the opening quote, about enjoying the small parts of life whether you're 8 or 80.

"Small" as in Driveways, where the titular constructions are more than the separation between suburban homes-they're what binds them.

The greatness of this film lies in its modesty. And its existential depth is at the very heart of its narrative sobriety. In a low profile performance of exceptional restraint, profoundness and precision - like an old samurai - Dennehy is at the top of his game. He shows us for one of the last time before his death the great actor he was, despite his "B movie / Movie of the Week" reputation.

A story of the young and the old... Two souls that are in way different times of their lives, but connect to give each other something they both so desperately need, a friend. Great story, and great acting, it's a must watch.