ViewGuide

Created Nov 10, 2010 05:20PM PST • Edited Feb 24, 2020 07:42PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   A gem, worthy of its Best Picture Oscar. Charming, tart, meaningful, and powered by tour de force acting, Driving Miss Daisy relates the gentle friendship between two elderly survivors of poverty and discrimination. Both a road and a buddy movie, it brings to life a long gone – but not that long ago – South as it was transitioning into the New South of economic growth, and incipient equality.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Jessica Tandy deservedly won the Best Actress Oscar for her crisp portrayal of Miss Daisy, the tart and somewhat embittered Southern Jewish widow.

   Nominated for the Best Actor Oscar, Morgan Freeman had the misfortune to go up against Daniel Day-Lewis’ jaw dropping performance in My Left Foot. Freeman’s strong, genial and kind performance ennobles everyone around him.

   OTOH, Dan Ackroyd hardly deserved his Oscar nomination for playing the long suffering son. He does a nicely understated job, making it somewhat out of character for a comic actor, but still not Oscar worthy.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

8. Male Costars Good 3.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    Southern and Jewish? There’s a stereotype buster, though one that allows for the exploration of discrimination through an additional lens beyond that of the severe experience of African-Americans.

11. Direction Great 4.0

    The great Bruce Beresford demonstrates his deft touch. Why wasn’t he nominated for an Oscar?

12. Play Perfect 5.0

    Alfred Uhry has only written a few movies and none for almost 20 years. Still he remains the first (only?) playwright to win the Tony, the Oscar, and the Pulitzer Prize. Driving Miss Daisy won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as a play, then won the 1990 Screenplay Oscar as a movie.

13. Music Perfect 5.0

    Great, great theme. Oddly, it wasn’t nominated for an Oscar.

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.3

17. Sex Innocent 1.0

18. Violence Gentle 1.3

19. Rudeness Polite 1.5

21. Reality

    Glib 1.1

    Miss Daisy Werthan had the kind of Reformed Jewish home that served pork chops. No wonder her son’s social-climbing wife held Christmas parties.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.2

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0