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DRIVING LESSONS (STER KINEKOR)
Director: Jeremy Brock
Featuring: Julie Walters, Rupert Grint, Nicholas Farrell and Laura Linney
Rating: ****

Driving Lessons is touching, hilarious, and one of the best films I have seen in ages. It is one of those slight, character-driven flicks that the British are so skilled at making. What a difference a script sparkling with wit and charm makes and what a breath of fresh air it is to see a cast that works so well together, sharing irrepressible energy.

Julie Walters (Calendar Girls, Billy Elliott, Harry Potter) stars as Evie, an eccentric, free-spirited yet lonely retired actress who advertises for a young, Christian boy to help her around the house. Ben (Rupert Grint – Harry Potter) answers the advert. The son of a brow-beaten vicar, Robert, (Nicholas Farrell) and a domineering, do-gooder mother, Laura (Laura Linney – Kinsey, Love Actually), the sheltered Ben hardly knows what’s hit him when he arrives at Evie’s ramshackled house, thigh-high with paraphenalia and books.

Walters and Grint work together in the Harry Potter films as mother and son, and in this film they develop and deepen their professional relationship and their chemistry bubbles onto the screen.

Grint shows just how talented he is as Ben, a mummy’s boy desperately trying to break free from a mother he increasingly has little respect for. Linney also adds a gratingly awful character to her pantheon with Laura, who is one of those hypocritical people who force their particular brand of sanctimonious help onto others to make themselves look good. It is a mystery that Walters missed the awards season nomination lists for her magnificent performance as Evie, who is based on first-time director and writer (Mrs Brown, Charlotte Grey) Jeremy Brock’s own experiences with acting doyen Dame Peggy Ashcroft.

The film takes the form of a road trip as Evie tricks Ben into accompanying her, first camping then to the Edinburgh Festival where she is due to give a reading. As the journey progresses, Ben’s own figurative emotional journey begins. He learns to assert himself and live a little, finds love and learns the value of friendship.

If you are tired of sitting through half-baked thrillers, dramas that are emotionally manipulative or blockbusters that have sold out plot for profit, then buy a ticket to see this fine, funny story about a boy becoming a man and stepping out to embrace the world.

Reviewer: Gayle Edmunds

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