List Price: $19.94Amazon.com's Price: $14.99 You Save: $4.95 (25%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Sony
EAN: 0043396170919
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Sony Pictures Classics
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Sony Pictures Classics
Region Code: 99
Release Date: July 03, 2007
Running Time: 98 minutes
Sales Rank: 13983
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Theatrical Release Date: October 13, 2006
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Oscar® nominee Laura Linney (Kinsey) stars as Laura Marshall, an overzealous, evangelical Christian do-gooder who fills her home with down-and-out boarders, including a senile, cross-dressing murderous mute. Desperate to expand his horizons, Laura’s shy teenage son Ben (Rupert Grint, of Harry Potter fame) lands a job tending to self-proclaimed "Dame" Evie Walton (Oscar® nominee Julie Walters, Billy Elliot), an over-the-hill actress with the mouth of a drunken sailer and an insatiable lust for life. The battle for Ben’s soul begins as Evie shanghais Ben away from his repressive roots and takes him on an adventure that transforms him from boy to man. A winning entry at the 2006 Moscow International Film Festival, Driving Lessons is an experience Stephen Farber of Movieline calls "a delightful coming-of-age story."
Amazon.com:
More down-to-earth than Auntie Mame, Driving Lessons imparts the same simple, but enduring message—be yourself. In the directorial debut from screenwriter Jeremy Brock (Mrs. Brown), 17-year-old Ben (Harry Potter's Rupert Grint, sluggish yet sympathetic) lives with his vicar father, Robert (Nicholas Farrell), and pious mother, Laura (Laura Linney doing a passable, but inconsistent British accent), in a tree-shaded London suburb. Soft-spoken Ben writes poems and looks forward to passing his driver's test. When his mother encourages him to get a job, he becomes an assistant to retired actress Evie Walton (Billy Elliot's Julie Walters, hunched up to look elderly). He finds her overbearing at first. Still, Evie is preferable to Laura, who may do volunteer work with her husband's parishioners, including bizarre boarder Mr. Fincham (Jim Norton), but also cheats on him with Reverend Peter (Oliver Milburn) and engages her resentful son in the subterfuge. Then Evie tricks Ben into driving her to Edinburgh for a poetry reading, where he learns to assert himself and she learns to put the dramatics on hold—at least for a few minutes. Ben also loses his virginity to a woman he just met, sending a secondary message some parents might not appreciate (the film's sprinklings of profanity earned it a PG-13). Driving Lessons itself seems stranded between coming-of-age story and character study. Ironically, Farrell gives the most convincing performance as Ben's bird-loving father. Engaging if uneven, this parable about hypocrisy and self-expression might have been more interesting if presented from his perspective. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Stills from Driving Lessons (click for larger image) Beyond Driving Lessons at Amazon.com 
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Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
My husband and I had never heard of this film but it met our criteria for renting from the video store - not more than a couple of copies available to be checked out and winner of some rather different sounding awards. Man, were we pleased. Excellent performances by Rupert Grint and Julie Walters.
Rating:  -
*** 2006. Written and directed by Jeremy Brock. London. Ben Marshall's father is a minister and his mother a woman more interested in the social activities of the parish than in Ben's life. So when Ben meets Evie Walton, an aging actress, he also finds in her an attentive friend who'll help him to become an adult. Nothing really original in this film but noteworthy performances by Laura Linney and, above all, by Julie Walters as the alcoholic Evie Walton. The satirical description of the domestic ... Read More
Rating: -
I watched Driving Lessons, starring Rupert Grint, Laura Linney, and and Julie Walters, this week. Though it definitely had its maudlin/trite moments, it's worth seeing for Julie Walters' great performances and to take a look at what Grint can do minus his Hogwarts wand.
Grint plays Ben, a 17-ish young man with an overbearing mother (Linney, though it's not her best work). Ben's mom, a priest's wife, makes it her personal mission to take care of all the aged people in their neighborhood, ... Read More
Rating: -
I found it mysterious that they even call the movie DRIVING LESSONS, implying that young Rupert Grint's mission in life is to get his drivers license, and then they just sort of forget about his quest, so that by the end of the movie, you see him walking up a big hill and we argued about whether or not that means he failed in life or he succeeded? Did he discover that driving isn't so great? Or had he transcended his desires and was on to something new, courtesy of Dame Evey Walton (played by the irrepressible ... Read More
Rating: -
Driving Lessons There are a whole bunch of Reviews here; not much else to write, except that the movie is marvelous and that Ben finally learns how to . . .
Buy the DVD!
K. Distler 5-16-o8
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