Cinema - Driving Lessons

Four Weddings and a Funeral was such a massive smash that it started off its own sub genre: offbeat, ‘charmingly’ eccentric British comedies aiming at the American market. Driving Lessons is just such a film. It’s a coming-of-age movie starring Harry Potter sidekick Rupert Grint in the main role as a 17-year-old kid who has been emotionally stunted by an overbearing, religiously fanatical do-gooder mother, played by a miscast Laura Linney. His father isn’t much of a role model - the local vicar, he is in thrall to his wife and spends much of his time putting out a publication called ‘Hello Jesus’. Badgered by his mother to get a summer job, the listless Grint (who does a good line in Hugh Grantesque permanent befuddlement) meets an over-the-hill actress (Julie Walters) who needs a helper.

You wonder if Dames Maggie or Judy might have been better cast as Walters over-acts her part as a foul-mouthed alcoholic who exaggerates the importance of her career, and persuades the boy to drive her up to Edinburgh. Needless to say, out of the control of his mother, Grint learns some valuable lessons of life. Some road movies are exhilarating roller-coasters; others are like interminable trips on the motorway where you tick off the miles and are delighted when they have reached their end. DL