Looking back, it's kind of startling how successful Driving Miss Daisy was, both in terms of awards and public recognition. It's not just that it's a bad film, because there are plenty of bad movies that are overrated for perfectly understandable reasons. But there's very little to grab onto here. It's a dull movie, with the drama and comedy being equally half-hearted, leaving us just watching a pleasant but not particularly interesting series of events. The direction is inept, and the performances are solid (excepting Dan Ackroyd's terrible southern accent) but don't have much to work with. The critical and commercial success of the film and the play it's based on would then seem to be a mountainous testament to America's willingness to hear a racial fairy tale.
Morgan Freeman, as Hoke Colburn, represents the kind of racial integration everyone can get behind. He's an old, cuddly black man whose rebellion against racism is never fiercer than an angry mutter under the breast and is usually the picture of folksy wisdom and compliance. What's more, the film gallingly presents the struggle for equality as Hoke's struggle to serve Daisy, and her acceptance of his service to her as an overcoming of prejudice. By this logic the antebellum south was a hotbed of anti-racism. It is, however, very comforting to the white movie-goer, who can now beam at their own acceptance as they take their popcorn from the black woman working for minimum wage behind the counter.
Driving Miss Daisy meanders from one year to the next, stopping on plots briefly and occasionally finding affecting material but never really having the focus to explore it. The makeup is perhaps the only thing done well here, ageing its characters two decades in a way that seems absolutely natural. In the end, while Driving Miss Daisy was only made in 1989, I've seen films from 1929 that seem fresher and less dated. The sepia-toned nursing-home cinematography accounts for a lot of that, but I'd like to imagine that its glib presentation of race is also part of why it seems so jarring to a contemporary viewer. On the other hand, The Help did pretty well for itself at the awards as well, so maybe that's wishful thinking.
Morgan Freeman, as Hoke Colburn, represents the kind of racial integration everyone can get behind. He's an old, cuddly black man whose rebellion against racism is never fiercer than an angry mutter under the breast and is usually the picture of folksy wisdom and compliance. What's more, the film gallingly presents the struggle for equality as Hoke's struggle to serve Daisy, and her acceptance of his service to her as an overcoming of prejudice. By this logic the antebellum south was a hotbed of anti-racism. It is, however, very comforting to the white movie-goer, who can now beam at their own acceptance as they take their popcorn from the black woman working for minimum wage behind the counter.
Driving Miss Daisy meanders from one year to the next, stopping on plots briefly and occasionally finding affecting material but never really having the focus to explore it. The makeup is perhaps the only thing done well here, ageing its characters two decades in a way that seems absolutely natural. In the end, while Driving Miss Daisy was only made in 1989, I've seen films from 1929 that seem fresher and less dated. The sepia-toned nursing-home cinematography accounts for a lot of that, but I'd like to imagine that its glib presentation of race is also part of why it seems so jarring to a contemporary viewer. On the other hand, The Help did pretty well for itself at the awards as well, so maybe that's wishful thinking.