Miss Daisy et son chauffeur

Looking for a great, in-yer-face fast-moving action THRILLER? Driving Miss Daisy ain't it.

Looking for a great MOVIE? You're in the right place.

"Driving Miss Daisy" charts the subtly-shifting relationship between "Miss Daisy," a very reluctantly aging Jewish lady who's no longer able to drive for herself, and her new (and, as you can expect, rather unwelcome!) driver -- a not-terribly-young-himself Black guy (or African-American guy, whichever you prefer) named Hoke.

Bear in mind this is the Deep South of the 1950's and 60's we're talking about here, and the racial attitudes and prejudices of that time make for fascinating background -- as does the whole general culture, which I believe was well portrayed.

The directors frankly took on some delicate racial subject matter here (and certainly the racial divide in those days was very deep indeed) -- but they handled it with remarkable skill. I think they succeeded so well because they brought you into the lives of people as people, not just as cardboard stereotypes. Long before the movie is over, you find yourself really caring about the two main characters -- Daisy and Hoke.

This is a movie about life, relationships, and people. You see some good things -- and also some very human weaknesses, not the least of which is sheer stubborn pride.

I personally was a child of the deep South, and I appreciate movies such as this one and Jessica Tandy's other wonderful movie Fried Green Tomatoes (which is in some ways very similar) which give us a glimpse into the culture of those days. There are definitely things we can learn from the past, and there are also things we can learn from watching how people change over the course of their lives.

Several moments from this movie stand out, some of which are funny, some sobering, and some of which are particularly moving:

The scene involving Dr. Martin Luther King.

The unashamedly bigoted comments of a 50's or 60's police officer.

A great scene involving Hoke and Miss Daisy's businessman son.

An incredible scene in which Jessica Tandy portrays the aging Miss Daisy.

And, perhaps most of all, what Miss Daisy says to Hoke towards the end of the movie.

Now personally, I love action movies so well that I was initially reluctant even to watch this one. This is not a movie of action, but it IS a movie of substance and beauty, mixed with some funny moments.

The acting is great, the script and directing are beautifully done, and the substance, humor and beauty are such that overall, I consider "Driving Miss Daisy," one of the best movies I've ever seen.

When Jessica Tandy won her Oscar for Driving Miss Daisy a lot of people forget this was hardly the first southern lady that the British born Tandy played. On Broadway Jessica was the original Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire and was the only one of the original cast who didn't make the trip to Hollywood with Vivien Leigh playing Blanche and winning a second Oscar for it. But there is a universe of difference between Blanche Dubois and Daisy Werthing and it ain't just age.

In fact Tandy may play the only role film history where you start at 70 and then age in the part. She's a genteel southern woman, but formidable who happens to be Jewish. One day she has an accident and emerges unhurt, but the car is wrecked and son Dan Aykroyd decides that his mother needs a chauffeur.

An idea not pleasing to Tandy as she's used to doing for herself. Even the presence of Esther Rolle as a cook was upsetting to her, but Rolle toughed it out and became a household fixture. So when Aykroyd hires Morgan Freeman to be a driver, Freeman will have his work cut out for him.

The success of Driving Miss Daisy is really dependent on the chemistry between Tandy and Freeman. You haven't got that and the film would sink. Fortunately they click beautifully together.

Author Alfred Uhry grew up in the Atlanta of the time and Atlanta was relatively a beacon of some light in the cracker and segregated south of the time. Mayor William B. Hartsfield of the period always advertised his city as the one too busy to hate. Given the parameters of the times, Hartsfield moved to gradually end segregation and to improve the services for Atlanta's black population. Hartsfield is mentioned in passing in the film. Remember Tandy's character is Jewish, a people not looked on too fondly either by a lot of the Deep South. But in Atlanta they have some measure of safety.

Uhry's memories yielded him a Pulitzer Prize winning play and an Academy Award Best film. He also got an Oscar for adapting his off Broadway success to the screen. Of course Jessica Tandy became the oldest player to ever receive an acting Oscar. And Driving Miss Daisy also got an Oscar for Best Makeup.

And it was nominated for Best Art&Set Direction, Best Editing, Best Costumes with Oscar nods for Morgan Freeman for Best Actor and Dan Aykroyd for Best Supporting Actor.

For Freeman his best moment comes when on a trip to Mobile,Alabama with Tandy he puts up with the indignities and humiliation of segregation and exposes Tandy to a world she really wasn't aware of. And Tandy got her Oscar for the moment when she and those around her realize that Alzheimer's Disease has gotten control. For an elderly player to even contemplate such a thing that could so easily happen to them must be a nerve wracking experience. Jessica Tandy saw in her life such colleagues as Rita Hayworth, Dana Andrews, and Edmond O'Brien among others lose their last few years and careers to the long lingering twilight of Alzheimer's, no doubt she drew from all of them and her own fears that it could happen to her to deliver this performance.

Driving Miss Daisy is one of the best films of the last half of the last century and one that will be studied and revived for years to come. Budding actors who need chemistry lessons should study what is working between Tandy and Freeman.

It's hard to imagine someone seeing "Driving Miss Daisy" without being moved somehow, yet few films suffer more in terms of reputation from winning a Best Picture Oscar. In disparaging "Daisy," many myths have sprung up that cloud the film's legacy and need addressing.

1. "Driving Miss Daisy" won because 1989 was a weak year for movies - 1989 was a great year for movies. Among the films out that year which weren't even nominated for Best Picture were "Glory," "Henry V," "Do The Right Thing," "Parenthood," "Batman," "Crimes And Misdemeanors," "The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen," "sex, lies, and videotape," "Steel Magnolias," and "When Harry Met Sally." Unlike most years, any of the five Best Picture nominees could have won without anyone being too upset.

2. "Driving Miss Daisy" is a syrupy feel-good exercise devoid of grit - While made in an artfully soft-focus and gentle style in keeping with the spirit we associate with the American South of recent bygone days, director Bruce Beresford and writer Alfred Uhry present us with a complicated and tricky story that challenges us right away. How many films get made showing old Jewish women complaining a poor black man stole a 33 cent can of salmon from her pantry? "Daisy" allows its central character to say some astounding things about blacks ("They all take things, you know," "They're like children,") and yet trusting us to have the tolerance to watch her grow.

3. "Driving Miss Daisy" was popular because it features a passive black man - Morgan Freeman as Hoke gives a haunting, multi-layered performance of someone who is anything but passive. Because he is a black man in the Jim Crow South, he must make do working as a driver for Miss Daisy despite her resentment of him (which stems from her anger over her infirmity, not his skin color, to address another myth.) Hoke is a model of stoic patience, of finding silver linings and angles, and breaking down barriers through common sense. "You needs a chauffeur and Lord knows I needs a job," is how he puts it to Miss Daisy. "Now why don't we leave it at that?" Of course, his patience with Miss Daisy over time yields more than a mere truce, not to mention a healthy raise and some fine used automobiles. And he retains his dignity in every scene.

4. "Driving Miss Daisy" is mainly about race - Race is a theme, but the central theme is the passage of time. The film presents us with small vignettes, connected to seasons of the year, charting the growing relationship between Hoke and Daisy. As the characters age, we see every wrinkle on their skin and sense without anything being pointed out too strongly just how fragile and fleeting this thing called life really is. By film's end, long after race has been addressed, we are giving witness to the elusive pleasures of life in the face of Miss Daisy's mortality, a tough message for any movie to go out on, especially one as ultimately life-affirming as this.

5. Jessica Tandy won her Oscar out of sympathy because of her age - She won it because she was good. Very good. Check out her scene when she tells Hoke about visiting the Gulf of Mexico and tasting the saltwater on her fingers, then snapping at herself for being so silly. Then you get winning zingers, delivered with impeccable vinegar, like this about her assimilated daughter-in-law: "If I had a nose like Florine, I wouldn't say Merry Christmas to anybody." Ouch! I actually am less won over by that famous line of hers, "You're my best friend," because she makes the point so well with Hoke throughout the latter half of the film in many better ways.

6. It's boring - "Daisy" runs only a little over 90 minutes, and makes the most of every one of them. Nothing runs too long. When a member of the household dies, you get a falling bowl and then a singing choir. When Daisy teaches Hoke to read, it's represented by a small sequence in a graveyard and then let go. It would seem abrupt on the pages of the script, yet Mark Warner's crafty editing and Hans Zimmer's deft score make it all seem so natural.

7. Films like "Driving Miss Daisy" get made all the time - The only film that mixes comedy and pathos as effectively as this that I'm aware of is "Being There." But while that classic Peter Sellers film is something of a fantasy, "Daisy" is so grounded in reality it makes its ultimately uplifting character that much more satisfying.

This is a film about a lot of things - old age, relationships, assimilation and change. Some will say its too saccherine, or not a realistic look at the civil rights struggle, but they miss the point. Miss Daisy is part of a smaller minority within a majority; while not mistreated the way Hoke would be, she's still an outsider. It takes her until the end of the movie (and, since she's in her 90's, her life) to realize that she and Hoke are perhaps more similar than they thought.

I recall that Dan Aykroyd did the role of Booley for union scale pay, he was so anxious to play a serious role; it paid off handsomely, as Dan was nominated for an academy award. Tandy is wonderful, and I don't think it's humanly possible for Morgan Freeman to turn in a bad performance. Some have criticized Freeman for being such a subservient character, but they also miss the point of what it was to be an older black servant in the 1950's. A fine effort and a great family movie.

Driving Miss Daisy is an unusual film. Although it's really more of an extended pair of entwined character portraits--spanning a quarter of a century--it has all of the narrative focus and tightness of a more traditionally structured mystery plot.

The character portraits are of Daisy Werthan (Jessica Tandy) and Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman). The film is set in suburbs of Atlanta and begins in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Daisy is wealthy, but she wasn't born that way. Her son, Boolie (Dan Aykroyd) runs the successful family business--a large textile factory. At the beginning of the film, we see Miss Daisy, who is already around 60 years old or so, have a driving mishap--she has the car in the wrong gear and runs off of her driveway, almost completely backing over a 10 foot drop to the neighbor's driveway, at about 20 miles an hour. This naturally concerns Boolie, and when Daisy has a problem finding a company that is willing to insure her after the accident, Boolie hires Hoke--also rapidly approaching "elderly"--as her driver, against her protests. She doesn't want a driver. She doesn't want someone else in her house. She doesn't want to be treated as if she's incapable. Driving Miss Daisy is an exploration of Hoke and Daisy's relationship, all the way into the early 1970s.

Alfred Uhry adapted the script from a play he wrote by the same name that was first produced Off-Broadway. Although the play began in a small theater, it had good reviews and good word of mouth, necessitating a move to a larger theater. Uhry eventually won a Pulitzer Prize for his work. He has said that that Driving Miss Daisy was semi-biographical about his grandmother and her driver.

That fact probably helped create the remarkable depth of character shown in the film, although certainly director Bruce Beresford, Freeman, who also starred in the play, and Tandy do more than their share to build a charming, frequently funny and poignant portrayal of two very different humans learning to see eye to eye.

It's significant that Driving Miss Daisy is set in the South and spans the period prior to and slightly after the civil rights movement in the US. And it's significant that Hoke is an African-American while Miss Daisy is Jewish.

Miss Daisy is humorously fussy, prim and proper. Well, to the audience at least--I don't suppose it would be so humorous to have to deal with it. This helps create an initial "formal antagonism" between Daisy and Hoke. Only infinite calm and patience from Hoke earns a gradual softening of Daisy's public displeasure and curmudgeonliness. The unusual structure means that Driving Miss Daisy is more a series of vignettes, each significant to the gradual coming together of Hoke and Daisy, although most incidents are relatively minor in isolation. Uhry makes the film a collection of those small but memorable, important and frequently amusing (at least in retrospect) moments that make up a lifetime of telling memories in any familial relationship--and Hoke does become family. Eventually, Hoke and Daisy form a bond that is perhaps stronger than Daisy's bond with her own son.

As for the significance of Hoke and Daisy's ethnic orientations, Miss Daisy makes a vocal point of not being racist or otherwise discriminatory. She also likes to focus on her humble beginnings--a few incidents near the beginning of her relationship with Hoke hinge on her being embarrassed at her wealth. And of course, as a Jew in the South, she is well aware of discrimination and disadvantage, having experienced it first hand.

One of the more touching scenes of the film features Hoke and Daisy driving to Alabama to attend her brother's 90th birthday party. It's Hoke's first time outside of Georgia. They've parked temporarily on the side of the road. Two white Alabama policemen see Hoke and pull over. They want to know what Hoke is doing with a nice, new Cadillac. When they discover that Daisy is Jewish, they are disparaging through implicature, and they make a literally discriminatory remark to each other when Hoke and Daisy drive off. Although these kinds of events are much more major than say, apparently stealing a can of salmon, Uhry and Beresford tie them together wonderfully so that they all have about the same significance.

Related to these themes, the film is also charming and moving for juxtaposing a kind of personal consistency throughout time with a rapidly changing society. That's why the profound social changes happening "just next door", so to speak, are largely kept in the background.

Technically, Driving Miss Daisy is a gem. It's full of subtly complex and aesthetically pleasing cinematography, well blocked scenes and a fabulous and deservedly famous score from Hans Zimmer. But the story and performances are so good that it's almost difficult to notice the technical stuff.

Unless you are completely averse to anything even slightly in the realm of realist drama/light comedy, Driving Miss Daisy is a must-see. It's sentimental but not syrupy and touching but not overly serious--you'll laugh just as often as anything else. Don't miss this one if you haven't yet seen it.