Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

8/10

Starring

Morgan Freeman

Jessica Tandy

Dan Aykroyd

Directed by Bruce Beresford

Here is a movie which is more than just a classic it is a shelf keeper, one for your archive which you can watch time after time. Driving Miss Daisy shows how diversity and difference can be overcome when two people rely on themselves for support rather than view themselves as unequal.

Based on a 1987 Pulitzer Prize winner drama of the same name by Alfred Uhry which was part of his Atlanta series.

This film had Morgan Freeman (who got an Academy Award nomination, but lost to Daniel Day-Lewis) reprise his role as Hoke Colburn from the play. When released, the movie won Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Makeup at the 62^nd Academy Awards and landing both leads (Freeman and Jessica Tandy) Best Performance by an Actor and Actress in the 47^th Golden Globe Awards.

Driving Miss Daisy is a comedy drama about an old lady and her chauffeur, who are a weird mix and a totally miss matched pair of a white Jewish 65-year-old lady and a black man in the year 1948.

While watching you will never believe how they grew from being employee and employer to friends, over the thirty-two-year period which the movie is set to have spanned.

Touching many touchy subjects along the way, you will be totally amazed how one character judged, behaved and out rightly trying not to like another and how the other character humbled himself and made sure he was well behaved and cultured.

Driving Miss Daisy starts with the introduction of Miss Daisy (Tandy) and her accident which had her marked as unfit to drive. Her son Boolie (Dan Aykroyd, who also got an Academy Nomination for Best Supporting Actor) hired Hoke (Freeman) to come be his mother’s chauffeur. Miss Daisy hated the idea that she had to rely on someone to drive her around and did everything she could to make Hoke uncomfortable and to get her son to fire him.

After the persistence of both Hoke and Boolie, Miss Daisy finally gave in and allowed Hoke to drive her around. Their days together made them grow fond of each other and Miss Daisy a retired school teacher took interest in Hoke’s inability to read and taught him how to.

They lived through anti-Semitism together, Dr. Martin Luther King’s movement to stop racism and Miss Daisy battle with dementia as she got older.

This is one movie that will touch you and make you appreciate the stand many black people had to take to make sure others are free. Based on a $7.5 million budget this classic closed shop with over $145 million in the box office.