

"It's a bland but decent film that I liked without loving it."

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz


Australian New Wave director Bruce Beresford ("Breaker Morant"/"Tender Mercies"/"Don's Party") does a fine job making this three-character play open up to be almost cinematic (no director could make it completely cinematic) and he gets superb performances from the ensemble cast, especially from Tandy and Freeman, and the most he could get out of this slight story, one that is more interested in making small social observations than in coming up with anything daring to say with a bite. The modest budgeted film was surprisingly a big box office success, showing it had universal appeal.

In 1948, the 72-year-old Miss Daisy (Jessica Tandy) crashes her new Packard in her driveway into a flower bed and  through a retaining wall into her neighbor's yard. Her concerned married factory owner son, Boolie Werthan (Dan Aykroyd), reasons she no longer is able to drive herself and over her objections hires the gentle sixtyish Hoke (Morgan Freeman) to be her chauffeur. After a bumpy start, we follow them driving around a gentile and tolerant Atlanta until she's 90, and through their eyes we see how the south is changing.

The play transformed into an earnest high-minded Hollywood film smacks of liberal sensibilities and never goes past self-congratulating itself on being so tolerant (Miss Daisy grows out of her inborn prejudices over time), perhaps, targeting its liberal audience as those best able to appreciate what it's all about. No one in the cast is Jewish, though this doesn't stop acclaimed theater actress Tandy from giving her finest ever film performance, but nevertheless she never seems Jewish. Freeman is the soul of the film and the only real southerner cast, who is a joy to watch as he uses his wits to great advantage. Aykroyd gives a subtle performance of merit as a captive of his time, who keeps his liberal instincts in check so as not to antagonize any potential enemy. The film added two additional characters who weren't in the play: singer Patti LuPone has a straight undemanding dramatic part as Aykroyd's vulgar social-climbing wife and Esther Rolle is the black housekeeper, who makes the most of her turn at comic relief. It's a bland but decent film that I liked without loving it.

REVIEWED ON 3/14/2008        GRADE: B

Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"