The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 93 Days to go: 62
Movie #347: Driving Miss Daisy
I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen this movie since it came out in theaters, when I remember enjoying it (though for some absurd reason I was mortified that someone as old as Jessica Tandy would have my same first name). Watching it now, I can easily understand how Driving Miss Daisy became shorthand over the years for a certain kind of outdated and unfortunate racial dynamic, but that aspect of it — despite it sometimes coming off like it’s become a self-referential joke of some kind — doesn’t actually diminish of the enjoyment of it for me. It’s still a really sweet, funny film about friendship, about companionship, and about growing old with someone and depending on them, regardless of your differences.
Driving Miss Daisy starts out with our title character, Daisy Werthan (Tandy), backing her car off her driveway and over a ridge leading to the neighbor’s yard. As her son Boolie (Dan Aykroyd) informs her, it’s totaled the car and the insurance company refuses to cover her any longer. So despite her staunch objections and general stubbornness, Boolie hires Hoke (Morgan Freeman) to be her chauffeur.
Miss Daisy is very set in her ways, and a little bit racist (in the ways old people are often assumed to be racist, through a general acceptance of negative stereotypes without any sort of personal experience or understanding) though she claims to not be prejudiced at all. She’s mistrustful of Hoke and she resents the perceived imposition on her freedom and her privacy. Hoke, fortunately, takes it all in stride and the two sass each other back and forth for a while until finally a grudging respect and mutual appreciation evolves. Miss Daisy even witnesses for herself the discrimination Hoke faces and is able to eventually equate it to her sometimes lower status as Jewish. After twenty years or so together, Miss Daisy admits that Hoke is her best friend.
I love the Southern sensibilities of this film. While it isn’t the South I knew growing up, it does fully inhabit the South it’s set in. I can practically smell the sweet magnolias in the air, or feel the sweltering heat in the car that Miss Daisy refuses to run her air conditioner in. I can feel the peas Idella (Esther Rolle) is shelling as if they’re rolling through my own fingers instead of hers. I can smell the chicken frying in Miss Daisy’s cast iron skillet. Everything is just so fully realized, it’s like you’re peaking in on real live people in the middle of living their real lives. That sort of attention to detail can make all the difference, and it certainly makes a difference in Driving Miss Daisy.
In Driving Miss Daisy, simplicity is key. There are no shocking developments or dramatic turns. People simply learn to love and to count on one another through a lifetime of sharing their days. The same way real life works. That’s why it’s so good.
Viable Option 