Learning to Drive
Director: Isabel Coixet
Cast: Ben Kingsley, Patricia Clarkson, Grace Gummer, Sarith Choudhury, Jake Weber, Daniela Lavender, Samantha Bee, Avi Nash
Rating: C
Learning to Drive is a film filled with grown up humor about changes during a midlife crisis, and it strives to be the next big romantic comedy. Directed by Isabel Coixet, the production uses driving as a metaphor to provide fuel to move a story forward about overcoming conflicts and achieving personal growth once one hits middle age.
Darwan (Ben Kingsley), taxi driver by night and driving instructor by day, comes across Wendy (Patricia Clarkson) and her cheating husband Ted (Jake Weber) when they grab a ride home in his cab. Darwan gets Wendy home after the couple splits up in his back seat, but Wendy accidentally leaves a package in the car which gives Darwan a reason to go back to her house. When Wendy notices the driving instructor label on Darwan’s car she decides to take driving lessons. The upper middle class New Yorker always relied on her husband to take her everywhere and now she wants to overcome that dependency so that she can visit her daughter Tasha (Grace Gummer) in Vermont. But, more than visiting her daughter, Wendy sees driving as a way of freeing herself from the confines of her old life.
Darwan, a Sikh refugee from India, is trying to decide on a wife through an arranged marriage being orchestrated by his sister in India. The Indian instructor strikes up and odd but interesting friendship with his new driving student. Darwan’s gentle and firm nature provides plenty of pointers not only on driving but on life’s challenges as well.
Plenty of screen time is given to both of the lead characters. Darwan is faced with the challenge of building a relationship with his new wife Jasleen (Sarita Choudhury), a woman who is new to the western world and does not understand its customs or the needs of her husband. The noble cab driver has taken the responsibility of watching over his nephew Preet (Avi Nash) and feels lost when his fatherly guidance falls on the deaf ears of a young man who is rebelling against old traditions. We see Darwan’s struggles to make a life for him in a place that does not always welcome people of ethnic origin.
Wendy is coping with the idea of being single after her 21 year marriage comes to a close. The successful book critic is completely frazzled by the rejection of her husband and her ego can’t face why he no longer loves her. It is only through her interaction with Darwan that she begins to come to terms with her shortcomings and how she can move forward in still have a full life.
There are plenty of punchlines in Learning to Drive that are meant to make us laugh, but often the timing of the jokes is off leaving no comedic value in the film. Many of the lines meant to spit out wisdom just come out flat, uninspiring, and very predictable. There is also strong stereotyping in the movie when the film tries to address racial profiling and prejudice. Throwing in the issue of race was just not needed in a storyline that should have been focusing more on the issues the main characters were facing. A brown person sent in to save the soul of white person by delivering words of wisdom that a sophisticated woman couldn’t figure out on her own has been done in many films before and leaves audiences with nothing new to experience. Running at only an hour and a half, Learning to Drive feels very sluggish and more like a three hour film that just drags on and on.
Despite some heartfelt moments between Darwan and Wendy and few good jokes, this latest attempt at grabbing audiences with a blooming relationship taking place in a car just runs out of gas. With nothing to put this screen adaptation (based on a true story) into high gear, Learning to Drive just putters out before it ever reaches its destination.
