Driving Miss Daisy

25 March 2019

Driving Miss Daisy 1989

• Director: Bruce Beresford
• Based on the novel: no
• Cast: Morgan Freeman, Jessica Tandy, Dan Ackroyd
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Morgan Freeman – The Magic of Belle Isle, Lucy, Transcendence, The Dark Knight Rises, Invictus, The Dark Knight, Wanted, Batman Begins, Million Dollar Baby, Bruce the Almighty, Levity, Nurse Betty, Amistad, Kiss the Girls, Moll Flanders, Seven, The Shawshank Redemption, Robin Hood, Driving Miss Daisy
• Jessica Tandy – Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, The World According to Garp, The Birds
• Dan Ackroyd – Bright Young Things, Feeling Minnesota, Ghostbusters
• Why? Morgan Freeman
• Seen: Once previously. Now 23 March 2019      

       This got several Oscars, including Best Picture, and I remember liking it back then. Half an hour into the film, I can’t imagine why. Both leads, cranky, stubborn, impervious and rude Miss Daisy (Tandy) and Uncle Tom-ish, mouthy and giggly chauffeur Hoke (Freeman) are very annoying. Everyone in the film is annoying.

       Fortunately, we see more complexity in the characters behind the stereotypes, and a hint of the racism of the American South of the 50’s and 60’s. Not much but enough to save the film from being a total bust. Maybe it all seemed radical in 1989, friendships between two old people, one black, one white, one man, one woman, one bourgeoisie, one working class, but now it seems simplistic and naïve. Like I probably was in 1989.

       It seems I like Morgan Freeman more than some of his films. Maybe it’s time to see The Shawshank Redemption again.

2 ½ * of 5