Ben Kingsley and Patricia Clarkson shine in an otherwise sputtering star vehicle.
Director Isabel Coixet’s (My Life Without Me) latest is an odd-couple dramatic comedy about a quirky middle-aged writer named Wendy (Patricia Clarkson), who one day comes home to her New York apartment, only to discover her self-obsessed lifestyle has killed her marriage. Hurt and in mourning over a decades-long relationship, she decides now is the time to get her driver’s license. This way she can visit her daughter at college as well as discover the next step in her life. Wendy enlists Darwan (Ben Kingsley), a lonely, oft-persecuted Sikh driving instructor. Meanwhile, this instructor is anxious about meeting his new bride, a union recently arranged by his sister. Over the course of their lessons together, the two share their sorrows, exchange wisdom and change each other in unexpected ways.
Learning to Drive, is an unabashed exercise in giving the audience what it wants – a feel good film. There’s nothing wrong with setting out to create such a film; however it is easy for them to become emotionally manipulative affairs. Drive has a few too many instances where it feels like the filmmakers are trying to elicit unearned cheers or tears – by pulling the predictable heartstrings.
That being said, Clarkson and Kingsley are both inherently charismatic, yet grounded, performers; they show good chemistry here. The two are able to sell the slow blossoming of this unlikely friendship, even when the script dips into cliché territory.
Ben Kingsley, Sarita Choudhury, and Patricia Clarkson at the Red Carpet
It’s fun to watch these two bounce off one another, and therefore easy to invest in their respective plights. Moreover Coixet does well to keep the exact nature and direction of their burgeoning relationship ambiguous and ever-vacillating, creating some intriguing romantic tension as the film heads to its conclusion.
Sarita Choudhury's performance as Darwan’s bride-to-be, Jasleen, is noteworthy. While other characters are able to be blunt with what they say, Choudhury must be wordlessly compelling, staying true to her character’s language barrier. Choudhury does this from the get-go when her eyes communicate a sense of disorientation at being flown across the globe, having a distrust in this stranger she’s about to marry.
It’s here that Coixet is able to craft some of the film’s most quietly affecting moments as Darwan and Jasleen — two lonely people bound together — struggle to make their way across the massive divide that exists between them.
Ultimately, Learning to Drive is a film of modest pleasures, derived mostly from watching two supremely talented actors at play. Nothing about it is liable to stick with you after the credits roll —certainly none of the sappy, far-from-original parallels the filmmakers try to draw between operating a car and living a fulfilling life. But it’s a pleasant ride while it lasts.
Matthew Currie
Author
A long-standing entertainment journalist, Currie is a graduate of the Professional Writing program at Toronto’s York University. He has spent the past number of years working as a freelancer for ANOKHI and for diverse publications such as Sharp, TV Week, CAA’s Westworld and BC Business. Currie ...
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