By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Isabel Coixet
Country: united_kingdom, united_states
Year: 2015
Running time: 90
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3062976/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Chris says: “New York literary critic Wendy (Patricia Clarkson) breaks up with her longtime husband in the back of a cab after he confesses to cheating on her. Storming out of the car and into her apartment, she accidentally leaves behind a package. The next day, the driver, Darwan (Ben Kingsley), returns it to her front door, leaving behind his business card. A Sikh who had left India and settled in Queens not long before 9/11, Darwan is a cabbie by night, but also a driving instructor by day. In a coincidence tailor-made for plot convenience (although the story is actually adapted from a New Yorker article), Wendy never had a good reason to get a driver’s license until now. With her husband gone, she has no easy way to visit her adult daughter, Tasha (Grace Gummer), who is currently working on a farm in rural Vermont. So, headstrong, emotionally distraught Wendy becomes the calm but critical Darwan’s driving pupil and naturally, culture clash-hilarity and life lessons ensue.
“LEARNING TO DRIVE is a perfectly fine, pleasantly forgettable film—the kind of middle-of-the-road dramedy your mom will love. Predictably, the best parts are Clarkson and Kingsley together alone in the cab. Their chemistry isn’t necessarily romantic (although Sarah Kernochan’s screenplay works hard to suggest it’s heading in that direction) but rather platonic, and both actors are such likable pros they’d probably each pair well with anyone else as likable as them. There are funny cameos from John Hodgman (as a car salesman) and Samantha Bee (as Wendy’s suburban best friend) and more serious moments (a side trip to Wendy’s childhood neighborhood, Darwan’s travails with immigration and an arranged marriage) handled with suitable gravitas.
“And yet, while superficially satisfying, it feels slight. Perhaps I’m being too hard on it because I expect so much more from director Isabel Coixet, whose earlier features (MY LIFE WITHOUT ME, THE SECRET LIFE OF WORDS were much bolder, deeper, more unique and full of ambiguities than this. Here, she’s made a decent facsimile of a Nora Ephron or a Rob Reiner picture (complete with double entendre sexual jokes). I can get behind her wanting to court a wider audience, but she should proceed with caution (and perhaps return to directing her own screenplays)—indie cinema needs more Coixets and less Reiners. 3 cats
“LEARNING TO DRIVE screened at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.”