Review: Driving Miss Daisy

Beginning in Georgia in the 1940s, this film concerns the 25 odd years relationship between wilful but physically frail widow Miss Daisy (Jessica Tandy) and Hoke (Morgan Freeman), the African-American hired by her good ‘ol boy son Boolie (Dan Aykroyd) to be her chauffeur after Miss Daisy has a minor car accident. Miss Daisy takes exception to this intrusion on her independence, and refuses Hoke’s aid. However, their relationship slowly (and I do mean slowly) thaws through their years together.

 

Spike Lee is still pissed about it beating his film for the Best Picture Oscar, Morgan Freeman seems to think it resulted in him being typecast in ‘noble black man’ roles, and hell, even I think “Born on the 4^th of July” was the most deserving of the Best Picture nominees at that year’s Oscars. However, this 1989 Bruce Beresford (the Aussie director of “Don’s Party” and “Breaker Morant”) film is nowhere near the worst Best Picture winner (“Crash” and “Chariots of Fire” spring to mind right away). In fact, so long as you’re not looking at the film with an already set agenda against it, it’s a really nice, well-acted drama that isn’t remotely racist nor does it suggest a fondness for a time when African-Americans were servile. Anyone who thinks like that is being almost as petty as Spike. And yes, this is a white person writing here, so I’m well aware that it’s not a cultural experience I myself have personally lived.

 

However, I don’t even think this is particularly a film about race. At its core, it’s a relationship drama about an elderly woman whose independence is increasingly being stymied by her body’s frailty, and her gradual acceptance of not only help, but friendship. It’s both sad and beautiful that Jessica Tandy’s Miss Daisy comes to the realisation that her long-serving chauffeur Hoke is her best friend. In a film set anytime and anywhere else, Hoke could just as easily have been a white or Hispanic character. The fact that he’s African-American in this case is vital, but only because of the time and place that the film’s story takes place. In fact, Miss Daisy’s Jewishness raised more red flags to me, because Tandy (although excellent in her Oscar-winning performance) doesn’t really convince as Jewish, let alone this is the South, and I just think making the character white-Anglo would’ve made more sense (However, the author of the play has loosely based this on his own family, so obviously there is some basis in truth here). The only reason for it is to give Daisy some kind of slight outsider status so she has something in common with Hoke. I really don’t think it’s necessary for the story to work.

 

Jessica Tandy is excellent, and although I won’t deny Morgan Freeman’s performance is a bit of a showy Lou Gossett Jr. type part, he’s entertaining. Yes, it probably got him typecast, but I think Freeman’s overuse as a film narrator is probably the bigger issue he has faced. He’s good here, in an entertaining part (that he originated on stage), even if Hoke seems way too old to be a chauffeur to a supposedly frail older woman, and that’s at the start of the film. It supposedly spans 25 years, but Freeman looks late middle-age when we meet Hoke. It doesn’t prove a fatal flaw, just a niggling little annoyance. Meanwhile, Dan Aykroyd proved here that he could play things completely straight, as Miss Daisy’s well-meaning, but busy good ‘ol boy son Boolie. He’s actually perfect in the role and I think he deserved more praise for it.

 

On the downside, this isn’t the best work of composer Hans Zimmer (“Rain Man”, “The Lion King”, “Inception”), his synth score seems somehow cheap, like out of an 80s sitcom. It tries to accentuate the humour at times, but in attempting to do so, it kills the joke. It just doesn’t fit the film at all, it’s dreadful. It’s been nicely shot by Aussie DOP Peter James (“The Killing of Angel Street”, “Meet the Parents”), though.

 

No, this film didn’t deserve to win the Best Picture Oscar, but “Do the Right Thing” would’ve deserved it even less as far as I’m concerned. A sweet, gentle film about friendship and dependence where race is only on the side, if anything. It’s just history, regrettable history (unquestionably), but history nonetheless. This is what happened in the past, and yes we have hopefully evolved from it. However, you can’t expect the past to have evolved to where we are now, unless you have a hot tub time machine.

 

I’m fully aware that I’m a white Australian saying this, but honestly, Spike Lee and the other detractors of the film are really missing the point here. It’s not a great film, but it’s got three very strong performances. Tandy is particularly terrific, and towards the end of the film, rather brave. I ended up quite moved by the end of the film, actually. You can see how it would’ve worked on the stage, but at no point did I feel like I was watching a filmed play, so Beresford has avoided that pitfall, thankfully. It’s a solid film that deserves more respect than many seem to want to afford it, out of some misguided view of the film as celebratory towards racist times in history and a servile view of African-Americans. It’s a relationship film, race is a side issue. Time for people to come to this film again, I think and reassess it. Scripted by Alfred Uhry, and based on his own play (loosely inspired by his own grandmother, apparently).

 

Rating: B-