Friday, March 21, 2008

You Drive Me Crazy

I kind of feel like the expression on Rupert's face---->

No, I am not referring to the Britney Spears hit single or the Melissa Joan Hart movie from the earliest part of this decade. In fact, I am talking about a movie that I have recently watched, called Driving Lessons. It is an English film that stars Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley in the HP movies) as Ben, a seventeen-and-a-half year old who is quiet and kind of odd. He obeys his mother, played by Laura Linney, and her strict Catholic ways. But not all is as it seems. In fact, mommy dearest is hiding an illicit affair with another man, and she makes Ben take driving lessons so she can have an excuse for a little action on the side. Ben's poor dad (who is a Priest) is unbeknownst to all of this. Meanwhile, Ben's mum thinks it would be in Ben's best interest to help an aging actress-Evie- with things around the house and such. From then on the two form a bond that spans across generations. They go camping, Evie swallows the key to their car, Ben loses his virginity, and each learns a little from Shakespeare.
All and all, this coming-of-age film is quite boring, mostly due in part to the fact that the main character, Ben, DOESN'T SPEAK FOR LIKE THE FIRST THIRTY MINUTES. Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating, but it seems like that. Driving Lessons seems to drag on for a long time with pointless filler plots, which leads the audience into wondering what the whole point of this movie is. In the end, my friends and I had to speed up the dialogue on the DVD player and we did an NFL end zone dance when this movie was over.

No comments: