User reviews

This is a film about a lot of things - old age, relationships, assimilation and change. Some will say its too saccherine, or not a realistic look at the civil rights struggle, but they miss the point. Miss Daisy is part of a smaller minority within a majority; while not mistreated the way Hoke would be, she's still an outsider. It takes her until the end of the movie (and, since she's in her 90's, her life) to realize that she and Hoke are perhaps more similar than they thought.

I recall that Dan Aykroyd did the role of Booley for union scale pay, he was so anxious to play a serious role; it paid off handsomely, as Dan was nominated for an academy award. Tandy is wonderful, and I don't think it's humanly possible for Morgan Freeman to turn in a bad performance. Some have criticized Freeman for being such a subservient character, but they also miss the point of what it was to be an older black servant in the 1950's. A fine effort and a great family movie.

Daisy Werthan (Jessica Tandy) is an elderly Atlanta Jewish woman. The movie opens with her backing the car into her neighbor's yard. Her son Boolie (Dan Aykroyd) is a wealthy Textile factory owner, and he refuses to allow her to drive. He hires Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman) as her driver. She hates having him around at first, but their relationships eventually grows to the closest of friendship.

Written by Alfred Uhry from his award winning play, this is a touching evolution of the two's relationship. Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman are absolutely wonderful. Tandy would win the Oscar. The beauty in this is that it doesn't hit the audience over the head. She's not some two dimensional racist. Mostly she doesn't want to put on airs, and she doesn't want somebody bothering her at the her house.

While Driving Miss Daisy isn't what i call a best picture winner, since there were more deserving movies that came out that year, but the movie shouldn't get hate just for that.

The movie is sweet, charming and heartwarming. This is the kind of film that granny's go to watch and after it's over their something like "That was nice". Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy were excellent in this movie, as both of them had great chemistry and very entertaining conversations between them.

It dose get kind of dull at times and i do wish the films pasting was a bit better, but that's just me. I say it's worth checking out, because there's plenty of things to like and appreciate in this movie.

After watching this film for the second time I realized just how important the affection that occurs between Hoke and Daisy really is. What grows between these two is something most people only wish to have in their lives. What is so special about it, though?

From the beginning of their relationship, the two are forced to be together. Daisy is forced to have a driver and Hoke is hired on for that position. For both, the relationship is one out of need. Hoke needs a paying job and Daisy needs a driver in her old age (although, she would never admit it to anyone especially herself).

As time goes by, though, Daisy's need of Hoke becomes clearer to herself. She begins to depend on him. This is definitely made clear at the end when Hoke is feeding Daisy her pumpkin pie, and she enjoys each bite fully.

Another aspect of the movie which got to me was the great array of choices the director made with the filming. Hoke is a character of very few words but teaches Daisy so much. Morgan Freeman's acting in this character is amazing. The knowledge he shows within his eyes is one reason I almost felt closer to him than Daisy did throughout the first half of the movie. In a way, he teaches her a new way of life. He does so by showing himself truly and honestly.

Another choice the director made was in the symbolic way the film was made. The beauty of the many seasons is shown through the changes of the landscape. The trees transform from winter to spring and the streets go from sheets of ice to warm asphalt. And the cars get larger and more high tech. Time is so important in Daisy's and Hoke's affection/friendship that this is a great way to show that.

There are so many aspects of this film which I could go on and on about. It is a wonderful film of which any person can get a fulfilling movie watching experience out of. They can also learn a lot from it, too! Watch it.

I appreciated the fact that this film doesn't resort to overt lines of dialogue or actions to make its point. It relies on simple gestures and nuanced acting to convey its messages. Freeman and Tandy are excellent in doing this and are the driving force of the film. It goes at its own leisurely pace, which you can kind of respect. Though it it does seem to drag a little even with its short running time. Driving Miss Daisy is a pretty prototypical Best Picture winner for an old, sentimental Academy who respond to warm, old-fashioned films.

It's hard to imagine someone seeing "Driving Miss Daisy" without being moved somehow, yet few films suffer more in terms of reputation from winning a Best Picture Oscar. In disparaging "Daisy," many myths have sprung up that cloud the film's legacy and need addressing.

1. "Driving Miss Daisy" won because 1989 was a weak year for movies - 1989 was a great year for movies. Among the films out that year which weren't even nominated for Best Picture were "Glory," "Henry V," "Do The Right Thing," "Parenthood," "Batman," "Crimes And Misdemeanors," "The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen," "sex, lies, and videotape," "Steel Magnolias," and "When Harry Met Sally." Unlike most years, any of the five Best Picture nominees could have won without anyone being too upset.

2. "Driving Miss Daisy" is a syrupy feel-good exercise devoid of grit - While made in an artfully soft-focus and gentle style in keeping with the spirit we associate with the American South of recent bygone days, director Bruce Beresford and writer Alfred Uhry present us with a complicated and tricky story that challenges us right away. How many films get made showing old Jewish women complaining a poor black man stole a 33 cent can of salmon from her pantry? "Daisy" allows its central character to say some astounding things about blacks ("They all take things, you know," "They're like children,") and yet trusting us to have the tolerance to watch her grow.

3. "Driving Miss Daisy" was popular because it features a passive black man - Morgan Freeman as Hoke gives a haunting, multi-layered performance of someone who is anything but passive. Because he is a black man in the Jim Crow South, he must make do working as a driver for Miss Daisy despite her resentment of him (which stems from her anger over her infirmity, not his skin color, to address another myth.) Hoke is a model of stoic patience, of finding silver linings and angles, and breaking down barriers through common sense. "You needs a chauffeur and Lord knows I needs a job," is how he puts it to Miss Daisy. "Now why don't we leave it at that?" Of course, his patience with Miss Daisy over time yields more than a mere truce, not to mention a healthy raise and some fine used automobiles. And he retains his dignity in every scene.

4. "Driving Miss Daisy" is mainly about race - Race is a theme, but the central theme is the passage of time. The film presents us with small vignettes, connected to seasons of the year, charting the growing relationship between Hoke and Daisy. As the characters age, we see every wrinkle on their skin and sense without anything being pointed out too strongly just how fragile and fleeting this thing called life really is. By film's end, long after race has been addressed, we are giving witness to the elusive pleasures of life in the face of Miss Daisy's mortality, a tough message for any movie to go out on, especially one as ultimately life-affirming as this.

5. Jessica Tandy won her Oscar out of sympathy because of her age - She won it because she was good. Very good. Check out her scene when she tells Hoke about visiting the Gulf of Mexico and tasting the saltwater on her fingers, then snapping at herself for being so silly. Then you get winning zingers, delivered with impeccable vinegar, like this about her assimilated daughter-in-law: "If I had a nose like Florine, I wouldn't say Merry Christmas to anybody." Ouch! I actually am less won over by that famous line of hers, "You're my best friend," because she makes the point so well with Hoke throughout the latter half of the film in many better ways.

6. It's boring - "Daisy" runs only a little over 90 minutes, and makes the most of every one of them. Nothing runs too long. When a member of the household dies, you get a falling bowl and then a singing choir. When Daisy teaches Hoke to read, it's represented by a small sequence in a graveyard and then let go. It would seem abrupt on the pages of the script, yet Mark Warner's crafty editing and Hans Zimmer's deft score make it all seem so natural.

7. Films like "Driving Miss Daisy" get made all the time - The only film that mixes comedy and pathos as effectively as this that I'm aware of is "Being There." But while that classic Peter Sellers film is something of a fantasy, "Daisy" is so grounded in reality it makes its ultimately uplifting character that much more satisfying.

Maybe 'the Shawshank Redemption' (1994) (qv) is a bigger, better, more brazen film, with far more pretensions, and is, of course, an excellent film: but I cannot avoid thinking that it is in 'Driving Miss Daisy' that Morgan Freeman develops his best rôle, playing so well opposite the unrepeatable Jessica Landry. I have not seen all of Freeman's films, nor do I wish to. Of those I have seen he is more or less 'O.K.' as you might say; What makes 'Driving Miss Daisy' work is the human and humane compassion and sympathy flowing between the two lead actors, with Dan Ackroyd, surprisingly, and Esther Rolle both lending a good hand. One might argue that it is 'only' an oversweetened sentimental story; be that as it may, the film endeavours to portray the aging relationship between the white Jewish rich woman and her poor black chauffeur throughout 25 years. And Jessica Landry was over eighty years old when she made this film. In this aspect, evidently the film succeeds, as the story itself is really of secondary importance: it is the beautifully filmed scenes and the dialogues which build up to something greater than the story per se. In an age dominated by cinema stuffed with violence, sex, special effects and so on, here is an example without such measures, relying on pure acting and interpretative skills so as to tell a clean simple story. You might well like to compare this film with Lindsay Anderson's 'The Whales of August' (1987) (qv), with an absolutely unrepeatable cast with Lillian Gish, Bette Davis, Vincent Price and Ann Sothern: a delicious retrospective piece. 'Driving Miss Daisy' was meticulously made, with all those cars of the 50's and 60's and the careful scene settings, brought out by excellent photography, and all backed up by what must be Hans Zimmer's most appropriate and touching score. His score was also good in that tremendous film 'Thelma and Louise' as well as in 'The House of the Spirits' and 'Beyond Rangoon' (1995) (qv). 'Driving Miss Daisy' is one of those videos in my collection which I am pleased to blow the dust off and watch yet again: it is still as charming as ever.

Driving Miss Daisy is an unusual film. Although it's really more of an extended pair of entwined character portraits--spanning a quarter of a century--it has all of the narrative focus and tightness of a more traditionally structured mystery plot.

The character portraits are of Daisy Werthan (Jessica Tandy) and Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman). The film is set in suburbs of Atlanta and begins in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Daisy is wealthy, but she wasn't born that way. Her son, Boolie (Dan Aykroyd) runs the successful family business--a large textile factory. At the beginning of the film, we see Miss Daisy, who is already around 60 years old or so, have a driving mishap--she has the car in the wrong gear and runs off of her driveway, almost completely backing over a 10 foot drop to the neighbor's driveway, at about 20 miles an hour. This naturally concerns Boolie, and when Daisy has a problem finding a company that is willing to insure her after the accident, Boolie hires Hoke--also rapidly approaching "elderly"--as her driver, against her protests. She doesn't want a driver. She doesn't want someone else in her house. She doesn't want to be treated as if she's incapable. Driving Miss Daisy is an exploration of Hoke and Daisy's relationship, all the way into the early 1970s.

Alfred Uhry adapted the script from a play he wrote by the same name that was first produced Off-Broadway. Although the play began in a small theater, it had good reviews and good word of mouth, necessitating a move to a larger theater. Uhry eventually won a Pulitzer Prize for his work. He has said that that Driving Miss Daisy was semi-biographical about his grandmother and her driver.

That fact probably helped create the remarkable depth of character shown in the film, although certainly director Bruce Beresford, Freeman, who also starred in the play, and Tandy do more than their share to build a charming, frequently funny and poignant portrayal of two very different humans learning to see eye to eye.

It's significant that Driving Miss Daisy is set in the South and spans the period prior to and slightly after the civil rights movement in the US. And it's significant that Hoke is an African-American while Miss Daisy is Jewish.

Miss Daisy is humorously fussy, prim and proper. Well, to the audience at least--I don't suppose it would be so humorous to have to deal with it. This helps create an initial "formal antagonism" between Daisy and Hoke. Only infinite calm and patience from Hoke earns a gradual softening of Daisy's public displeasure and curmudgeonliness. The unusual structure means that Driving Miss Daisy is more a series of vignettes, each significant to the gradual coming together of Hoke and Daisy, although most incidents are relatively minor in isolation. Uhry makes the film a collection of those small but memorable, important and frequently amusing (at least in retrospect) moments that make up a lifetime of telling memories in any familial relationship--and Hoke does become family. Eventually, Hoke and Daisy form a bond that is perhaps stronger than Daisy's bond with her own son.

As for the significance of Hoke and Daisy's ethnic orientations, Miss Daisy makes a vocal point of not being racist or otherwise discriminatory. She also likes to focus on her humble beginnings--a few incidents near the beginning of her relationship with Hoke hinge on her being embarrassed at her wealth. And of course, as a Jew in the South, she is well aware of discrimination and disadvantage, having experienced it first hand.

One of the more touching scenes of the film features Hoke and Daisy driving to Alabama to attend her brother's 90th birthday party. It's Hoke's first time outside of Georgia. They've parked temporarily on the side of the road. Two white Alabama policemen see Hoke and pull over. They want to know what Hoke is doing with a nice, new Cadillac. When they discover that Daisy is Jewish, they are disparaging through implicature, and they make a literally discriminatory remark to each other when Hoke and Daisy drive off. Although these kinds of events are much more major than say, apparently stealing a can of salmon, Uhry and Beresford tie them together wonderfully so that they all have about the same significance.

Related to these themes, the film is also charming and moving for juxtaposing a kind of personal consistency throughout time with a rapidly changing society. That's why the profound social changes happening "just next door", so to speak, are largely kept in the background.

Technically, Driving Miss Daisy is a gem. It's full of subtly complex and aesthetically pleasing cinematography, well blocked scenes and a fabulous and deservedly famous score from Hans Zimmer. But the story and performances are so good that it's almost difficult to notice the technical stuff.

Unless you are completely averse to anything even slightly in the realm of realist drama/light comedy, Driving Miss Daisy is a must-see. It's sentimental but not syrupy and touching but not overly serious--you'll laugh just as often as anything else. Don't miss this one if you haven't yet seen it.

"Driving Miss Daisy" is so quiet and genteel that it threatens to evaporate right off the screen.

The source material is well written and carries with it a certain poignancy and power, but one suspects that it carried even more power on stage. The impression left by the film is that director Bruce Beresford had trouble filling out the screen.

He does get nice performances from his actors, though, especially Jessica Tandy as the title character, a privileged white woman through whose unique perspective we see the gradual changes wrought by the civil rights movement. Morgan Freeman is her chauffeur, and he does the gentle sage routine that seemed fresh at the time because we hadn't yet realized that that's all he would do for the next twenty years. And Dan Aykroyd takes an uncharacteristic stroll through more dramatic terrain as Miss Daisy's son.

"Driving Miss Daisy" is a pleasant enough movie, but the fact that it won the 1989 Academy Award for Best Picture, more than emphasizing the quality of this particular film, points out the lack of quality of everything else that year.

Grade: B

When Jessica Tandy won her Oscar for Driving Miss Daisy a lot of people forget this was hardly the first southern lady that the British born Tandy played. On Broadway Jessica was the original Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire and was the only one of the original cast who didn't make the trip to Hollywood with Vivien Leigh playing Blanche and winning a second Oscar for it. But there is a universe of difference between Blanche Dubois and Daisy Werthing and it ain't just age.

In fact Tandy may play the only role film history where you start at 70 and then age in the part. She's a genteel southern woman, but formidable who happens to be Jewish. One day she has an accident and emerges unhurt, but the car is wrecked and son Dan Aykroyd decides that his mother needs a chauffeur.

An idea not pleasing to Tandy as she's used to doing for herself. Even the presence of Esther Rolle as a cook was upsetting to her, but Rolle toughed it out and became a household fixture. So when Aykroyd hires Morgan Freeman to be a driver, Freeman will have his work cut out for him.

The success of Driving Miss Daisy is really dependent on the chemistry between Tandy and Freeman. You haven't got that and the film would sink. Fortunately they click beautifully together.

Author Alfred Uhry grew up in the Atlanta of the time and Atlanta was relatively a beacon of some light in the cracker and segregated south of the time. Mayor William B. Hartsfield of the period always advertised his city as the one too busy to hate. Given the parameters of the times, Hartsfield moved to gradually end segregation and to improve the services for Atlanta's black population. Hartsfield is mentioned in passing in the film. Remember Tandy's character is Jewish, a people not looked on too fondly either by a lot of the Deep South. But in Atlanta they have some measure of safety.

Uhry's memories yielded him a Pulitzer Prize winning play and an Academy Award Best film. He also got an Oscar for adapting his off Broadway success to the screen. Of course Jessica Tandy became the oldest player to ever receive an acting Oscar. And Driving Miss Daisy also got an Oscar for Best Makeup.

And it was nominated for Best Art&Set Direction, Best Editing, Best Costumes with Oscar nods for Morgan Freeman for Best Actor and Dan Aykroyd for Best Supporting Actor.

For Freeman his best moment comes when on a trip to Mobile,Alabama with Tandy he puts up with the indignities and humiliation of segregation and exposes Tandy to a world she really wasn't aware of. And Tandy got her Oscar for the moment when she and those around her realize that Alzheimer's Disease has gotten control. For an elderly player to even contemplate such a thing that could so easily happen to them must be a nerve wracking experience. Jessica Tandy saw in her life such colleagues as Rita Hayworth, Dana Andrews, and Edmond O'Brien among others lose their last few years and careers to the long lingering twilight of Alzheimer's, no doubt she drew from all of them and her own fears that it could happen to her to deliver this performance.

Driving Miss Daisy is one of the best films of the last half of the last century and one that will be studied and revived for years to come. Budding actors who need chemistry lessons should study what is working between Tandy and Freeman.

Is Driving Miss Daisy a terrible movie? Nope.

Is it the worst movie ever to win the Best Picture Oscar? Well yes, I'm afraid so, at least out of those that I've seen (pretty much all from 1980 onwards and a dozen or so from before that). The acting isn't especially bad but nor is it anything to write home about.

The problem is that the characters are basically a bit one dimensional for us to see anything exciting: Jessica Tandy does irascible for half the movie and then irascible with a heart of gold for the second half, Dan Ackroyd pretty much does exasperated the whole time and Morgan Freeman is mostly reduced to saying `yes suh` to whatever anyone says to him (which is, needless to say, a huge waste of his talents)

And the story...well there's nothing wrong with `They don't get on and then they do` type stories but they aren't exactly original and they'd had to be pretty special to be worth a best pic win. This one isn't. It's no-where near being a contender for any 'worst movie' lists but if it hadn't won the big one it'd probably just have disappeared into obscurity with all the other mediocre movies, which to be honest is pretty much where it belongs

Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy (in Oscar Winning performance) invoke grace and dignity in this sensitive treatment of race relations and old age. Freeman stars as a gentle, wise black chauffeur in the service of a spunky Jewish widow, played by Tandy. As the years pass, their relationship evolves into a remarkable friendship despite their different backgrounds.

The film is skillfully adapted from the award-winning play, unfolding against the backdrop of civil rights changes in the South. Somewhat simplistic to be considered a strong statement about race relations, the Best Picture/Best Screenpaly Oscar Winner makes a heartwarming effort to give witness to dignified aging.

Freeman was never better, and the chemistry between the two leads is simply beautiful to watch. This is a very special cinema experience.

After just seeing this movie, I have to wonder why this is so popular and widely regarded as a good film. Maybe I would have understood it if I lived during that time, maybe if I knew anyone who were at the very age of the main characters. It starts off looking like a pretty good comedy, but after the first ten minutes or so, the pace goes incredibly slow, and stays slow for the rest of the film. The developing relationship between Tandy and Freeman was good, but I never found myself liking or even just slightly caring about the character of Daisy, or what happened to her. Maybe I'm too intolerant, but I honestly couldn't stand her... and that's a real problem, since she's on-screen for the better part of the film. The plot is fairly good, but it moves so slowly that it's hard to pay attention to it, unless you really understand and feel for either or both of the main characters, neither of which I did during the film. The acting is all pretty good, with Tandy and Freeman giving outstanding performances(which is pretty much the only thing that made the film watchable for me). The humor is almost non-existent(had to mention it, this being part comedy, after all). All in all, probably good for those who can remember the times when this is set, and/or those who are about the same age as either of the two leads. Barely watchable, had it not been for the acting, for everyone else. I recommend this to people who experienced the years this is set in or those of the same age as either of the main characters(which, by now, is pretty much the same group of people). 7/10

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.

Looking for a great, in-yer-face fast-moving action THRILLER? Driving Miss Daisy ain't it.

Looking for a great MOVIE? You're in the right place.

"Driving Miss Daisy" charts the subtly-shifting relationship between "Miss Daisy," a very reluctantly aging Jewish lady who's no longer able to drive for herself, and her new (and, as you can expect, rather unwelcome!) driver -- a not-terribly-young-himself Black guy (or African-American guy, whichever you prefer) named Hoke.

Bear in mind this is the Deep South of the 1950's and 60's we're talking about here, and the racial attitudes and prejudices of that time make for fascinating background -- as does the whole general culture, which I believe was well portrayed.

The directors frankly took on some delicate racial subject matter here (and certainly the racial divide in those days was very deep indeed) -- but they handled it with remarkable skill. I think they succeeded so well because they brought you into the lives of people as people, not just as cardboard stereotypes. Long before the movie is over, you find yourself really caring about the two main characters -- Daisy and Hoke.

This is a movie about life, relationships, and people. You see some good things -- and also some very human weaknesses, not the least of which is sheer stubborn pride.

I personally was a child of the deep South, and I appreciate movies such as this one and Jessica Tandy's other wonderful movie Fried Green Tomatoes (which is in some ways very similar) which give us a glimpse into the culture of those days. There are definitely things we can learn from the past, and there are also things we can learn from watching how people change over the course of their lives.

Several moments from this movie stand out, some of which are funny, some sobering, and some of which are particularly moving:

The scene involving Dr. Martin Luther King.

The unashamedly bigoted comments of a 50's or 60's police officer.

A great scene involving Hoke and Miss Daisy's businessman son.

An incredible scene in which Jessica Tandy portrays the aging Miss Daisy.

And, perhaps most of all, what Miss Daisy says to Hoke towards the end of the movie.

Now personally, I love action movies so well that I was initially reluctant even to watch this one. This is not a movie of action, but it IS a movie of substance and beauty, mixed with some funny moments.

The acting is great, the script and directing are beautifully done, and the substance, humor and beauty are such that overall, I consider "Driving Miss Daisy," one of the best movies I've ever seen.

I didn't doze during the running time of this movie. I had to concentrate upon that because I just needed to understand the contents. I'm not a English speaker. They had a strong accent, it made me hard to understand. That's why I write it down like that this movie is calm and a little plain. There are no special events and an impact. Nevertheless Driving Miss Daisy is small and lovely film which dealt with American history(Nowadays I'm studying history of America). Most Impacts come out on the way of driving. They sometimes slander each others and make a strange situation. When they go to Mobile there are two drivers. She still doesn't recognize his individuality. He is just a black. Even after losing the way she doesn't give him an authority to find the way. I knew black people couldn't use any facility places in 1950s and 60s. However I realized that fro the first time when he said "I can't go to any service station". Two polices men also ignore them as a race and an age. There are many values to think. This film shows me an American history and a love that transcends all of the things.

"Driving Miss Daisy" is one of the nicest movies ever made. Winner of 4 Academy Awards including Best Picture of 1989, "Driving Miss Daisy" is about a black man who goes to work as a chauffeur for a stubborn old Jewish woman. Morgan Freeman and the late Jessica Tandy give brilliant performances in the lead roles, and they've never been better. I sure do miss seeing the presence of Tandy in the movies. She was good in just about everything she did in both feature and TV movies (her heart in acting always belonged to the stage). She very deservedly won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as Miss Daisy, a person who at first is not happy about this man coming into her life but learns to accept it and forms a real special friendship. Freeman is every bit her match here as Hoke, the chauffeur. The exchanges between the two in the beginning are very funny and very touching at the end. Dan Aykroyd takes on a rare serious role in "Driving Miss Daisy" as Tandy's son Boolie, a businessman who hires Hoke to be Miss Daisy's driver. And the late Esther Rolle (of TV's "Good Times" and "Maude") has a nice small part as Miss Daisy's maid. When this movie came out in late 1989 it was guaranteed many Oscar nominations. Then the nominations came out in February 1990 and "Driving Miss Daisy" got the most with 9 nominations. But one nomination was missing: Best Director. And what a gyp that was! Bruce Beresford did a terrific job of directing "Driving Miss Daisy" and to this day I will never understand why the Academy didn't nominate him. The Academy voters for the Best Director category got stupid that year and Beresford was omitted unfairly. This is a terrific movie and the director should have been nominated. Richard Zanuck, one of the producers of "Driving Miss Daisy", said something in March 1990 when accepting the Best Picture Oscar for this movie along with the other producer and real-life wife Lili Fini Zanuck that I completely agree with. He said quote: "Were up here for one very simple reason and that's the fact that Bruce Beresford is a brilliant director. It's as simple as that!" And "Driving Miss Daisy" is proof. It's a great movie.

**** (out of four)

Man, did I change my mind about this film, maybe more than any film I've ever watched. The first time I saw it I did not like it and thought it was very overrated. Why I gave more looks, I don't really remember but it went to "fair" the next time and "excellent" by the third. I think the main reason is that I shifted my focus off the irritable old woman (Jessica Tandy) to the long-suffering servant (Morgan Freeman).

Once I looked at this story through "Hoke's" eyes, it became an inspiring story. Freeman's character, "Hoke Colburn," simply provides the best the example of a what true servant of God should act like, plain-and-simple. It's one of the best examples on film I've seen of of patience, kindness, dedication and dignity in a difficult situation. It's also always inspiring to see a nice, good person overturn and win over the opposite with sheer kindness.

Another factor that has raised my rating of this film is the latest "newly-restored widescreen edition," which finally presents this movie as it should be, with all its beautiful cinematography. The sets in here are great, a terrific look at the 1950s through storefronts, billboards, automobiles, etc.

One thing this film taught me: "Hoke's" attitude isn't the only important aspect of this story. It's how we, as viewers, look at things, too, that makes a difference.

Morgan Freeman is perfect. Jessica Tandy is great. Dan Akroyd is incredible. This movie tells the story of a time in American history which has been forgotten by so many people. The time period of my grandparents was brought to life before my eyes by the brilliant performances is this film. The music is great. The acting couldn't be better. A fine little movie.

Why spend millions of dollars on special effects and scenes, when the actors still are most important? This movie proves all that. This movie gives a strong feeling of being back in a time I`ve never experienced myself. It is somewhere in my consciousness. This is a cozy comedy for the whole family. This film is much about how our daily life meets new inputs, and how we deal with it. Time doesn`t change, it is our daily lifes inputs. This serious comedy is as deep as it is easy, because it is more about ourselves than we sometimes think. Enjoy the art, the music, the lovely seasons.. 10 out of 10.

This is a gentle portrayal based from the play by Alfred Uhry about twenty and some years friendship among a Jewish old lady (Jessica Tandy married to Hume Cronyn , though Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Lucille Ball, and Angela Lansbury all were interested in playing her) and the sweet-natured African-American chauffeur (Morgan Freeman , studio executives also considered a Bette Midler/Eddie Murphy pairing) forced by her son (Dan Aykroyd) to take him . It's set in Georgia from late of 40s until the winds of change of customs and racial prejudice .

The development of story is enjoyable , intelligent , thought-provoking and pretty entertaining . Concerning on the relationship between the starring trio , Tandy , Freeman and Aykroyd , they're frankly marvellous . And the latter , Aykroyd, quite effective in a diverse kind of role from his usual humorous assignment . Riveting , plenty of sense and sensibility musical score by Hans Zimmer. The Hans Zimmer score was done completely with synthesizers, all of which he played , no orchestras were used . Colorful and glamorous cinematography by Peter James .

The film won various Oscars , well deserved for actress, Jessica Tandy, at age 81, she is the oldest winner of a Best Actress Oscar and adapted screenplay , make-up and picture , among them . And Golden Globe to actor Morgan Freeman and many others . The motion picture was skillfully directed by Bruce Beresford, this is his best movie . He's an Australian director with success (Breaker Morant) in Outback . Since the 80s , he has worked mainly in Hollywood and far away places (Mister Johnson , Black robe) with hits (Double jeopardy , Crimes of the heart , Tender mercies) and misfires (Silent fall , Her alibi , King David) ; however his own film-making has been overlooked . Although a number of actors have been prized in his movies , he has obtained too many flops .

Driving Miss Daisy is the story of a frienship between a hard to live with Jewish lady and her chauffeur. Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy give great performances along with Dan Aykroyd as a loving son to Miss Daisy. Great score and cinamatography add to this films enjoyment. If you're an old car buff like me, note that beautiful 1948 Hudson that is used in the first half of the movie.

An old Jewish woman (Jessica Tandy) and her African-American chauffeur (Morgan Freeman) in the American South have a relationship that grows and improves over the years.

This movie is pretty well known and does not really require a full review. But, suffice to say, it has earned the praise given to it. Some may paint it as a picture of race relations, or even religious relations (there are Jews celebrating Christmas and a synagogue bombing). But it is really a tale of friendship and the race or religion aspects are very minor.

Most interesting is the casting of Dan Aykroyd. He could easily have been dismissed as a bad idea, his very presence making this more of a comedy than it was intended to be. But by no means is this the case. In fact, compared to Miss Daisy, his character could even be considered the one "playing it straight".

"Driving Miss Daisy" is a classic example of a supposedly anti-racist film that itself is racially oblivious--a feel-good flick for white audiences to feel good about themselves for supposedly, like Jessica Tandy's titular character, having "never been prejudiced." It was so successful at this that Hollywood patted themselves on the backs for being likewise liberal minded and awarded this lousy excuse for cinema the Oscar for Best Picture. Meanwhile, they notoriously failed to even nominate "Do the Right Thing" (1989), or any other film that might challenge their attitudes about race, for Best Picture. Moreover, "Driving Miss Daisy" is exemplary of a filmed play: despite all of the traveling, it's essentially trapped within the sets of Miss Daisy's home and her cars; very little is done to open it up from its theatrical origins, and devoid of almost anything beyond the bare necessities that is essentially cinematic, it's full of talking and more talking.

In it, Morgan Freeman provides an archetype for the stock character of the Magical Negro--a variation on the long-standing Tom type: a white fantasy of a subservient black man with essentially no life outside of aiding the white protagonist and other white characters through their dramatic dilemmas. Even before driving Miss Daisy around for the rest of the proceedings, Freeman's Hoke, immediately upon entering the screen, helps Miss Daisy's son, Mr. Werthan (Dan Aykroyd), with a malfunctioning elevator at his factory. From there, it's just one "yessuh" after another as he drives the cantankerous Miss Daisy around Atlanta (along with a brief sojourn to Alabama), intermittently offering Miss Daisy some pearls of wisdom, which results in her eventually, through their elderly years from the late 1940s to early 1970s, treating him with some respect and friendship. Even when Hoke is shown talking alone with other black servants, Freeman never drops the slavish speech--another oblivious white writer's illusion that black servants, in the Jim Crow South, would speak much the same with each other as they do to their white employers.

Even though Miss Daisy and her son bond with Hoke, she still goes from trying to deny him from pulling over to urinate during a long car ride despite segregation preventing him from being allowed to use the toilet of the gas station at the previous stop and, later, thinks nothing of not inviting him to a speech by Martin Luther King--because, after all, she claims he must already know King and have every other opportunity to see him. Meanwhile, Mr. Werthan is plenty polite to Hoke, but he's not going to risk losing business with racists by attending anything having to do with the civil-rights leader or even put up much of a fuss if his mother or wife want to persecute their servants.

Regardless, that none of the white characters are without prejudice isn't the true fault here; it's that the rest of the picture is just as prejudiced and masks it with a veneer of anti-racist liberalism. Even then, though, it seems to obtusely approach racism against African Americans through the prism of anti-Semitism. There are the racist cops who intimidate Hoke, but they're also disrespectful, albeit less so, to the Jewish Miss Daisy. The bombing of a synagogue is covered and, yet, Hoke is never quite able to reconcile with Miss Daisy on its connection with lynching, let alone the later black Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham that the film never mentions--along with omitting almost everything else involving segregation and the Civil Rights movement in the South during the era. Boiling the Civil Rights movement down to a speech by King here makes "Forrest Gump" (1994) look as though it's an enlightening assemblage of American history by contrast.

All of this would be more tolerable, too, if the camera ever divined to leave the proscenium arch for a spell or the stage-bound theatrics of the chatter between Freeman and Tandy. Sure, they're fine-enough actors, I suppose, but I don't see what's so amusing about watching them and Aykroyd change makeup to appear ever and ever older for 100 minutes, but, yeah, kudos for making Freeman look like a perpetual geezer who's somehow aged a bit backwards if anything in real life. Additionally, the musical score is horrendously mawkish--egregiously contoured to affect emotions in the audience that the picture hasn't earned. In the end, "Driving Miss Daisy" is too simplistic, too, not to be transparently flawed and hypocritical: cinema without being cinematic, pretending anti-racism while being all-too-familiarly prejudiced.