Driving Miss Daisy


Driving Miss Daisy is a 1989 American comedy-drama film directed by Bruce Beresford and written by Alfred Uhry, based on Uhry's 1987 play of the same name. The film stars Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman, and Dan Aykroyd. Freeman reprised his role from the original Off-Broadway production.
The story defines Daisy and her point of view through a network of relationships and emotions by focusing on her home life, synagogue, friends, family, fears, and concerns over a twenty five year period.
Driving Miss Daisy was a critical and commercial success upon its release and at the 62nd Academy Awards received nine nominations, and won four; Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Makeup, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Plot

In 1948, Daisy Werthan, or Miss Daisy, a 72-year-old wealthy, Jewish, widowed, retired schoolteacher, lives alone in Atlanta, Georgia, except for a black housekeeper, Idella. When Miss Daisy drives her 1946 Chrysler Windsor into her neighbor's yard, her 40-year-old son Boolie buys her a 1949 Hudson Commodore and hires Hoke Colburn, a black chauffeur. Miss Daisy at first refuses to let anyone else drive her, but gradually accedes to the arrangement.
As Miss Daisy and Hoke spend time together, she gains appreciation for his many skills. After Idella dies during the spring of 1963, rather than hire a new housekeeper, Miss Daisy decides to care for her own house and have Hoke do the cooking and the driving.
The film explores racism against black people, which affects Hoke personally. The film also touches on anti-semitism in the South. After her synagogue is bombed, Miss Daisy realizes that she is also a victim of prejudice. But American society is undergoing radical changes, and Miss Daisy attends a dinner at which Dr. Martin Luther King gives a speech.
She initially invites Boolie to the dinner, but he declines, and suggests that Miss Daisy invite Hoke. However, Miss Daisy only asks him to be her guest during the car ride to the event and ends up attending the dinner alone, with Hoke, insulted by the manner of the invitation, listening to the speech on the car radio outside.
Hoke arrives at the house one morning in 1971 to find Miss Daisy agitated and showing signs of dementia, believing she is a young teacher again. Hoke calms her down with a conversation in which Daisy calls Hoke her "best friend." Boolie arranges for Miss Daisy to enter a retirement home. In 1973, Hoke, now 85 and rapidly losing his eyesight, retires. Boolie, now 65, drives Hoke to the retirement home to visit Miss Daisy, now 97.

Cast

Box office

Driving Miss Daisy was given a limited release on December 15, 1989, earning $73,745 in three theaters. The film was given a wide release on January 26, 1990, earning $5,705,721 over its opening weekend in 895 theaters, becoming the number one film in the United States. It remained at number 1 the following week but was knocked off the top spot in its third weekend of wide release by Hard to Kill. It returned to number one the next weekend and remained there for a fourth week. The film ultimately grossed $106,593,296 in North America, and $39,200,000 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $145,793,296. The film was released in the United Kingdom on February 23, 1990.

Critical reaction

Driving Miss Daisy was well received by critics, with particular emphasis on the screenplay & Morgan Freeman's and Jessica Tandy's performances. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 81% based on reviews from 64 critics, with an average score of 7.28/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Warm and smartly paced, and boasting impeccable performances from Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy." On Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 based on reviews from mainstream critics, the film has a score of 81 based on 17 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". CinemaScore similarly reported that audiences gave the film a rare "A+" grade.
Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune declared Driving Miss Daisy one of the best films of 1989. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "a film of great love and patience" and wrote, "It is an immensely subtle film, in which hardly any of the most important information is carried in the dialogue and in which body language, tone of voice or the look in an eye can be the most important thing in a scene. After so many movies in which shallow and violent people deny their humanity and ours, what a lesson to see a film that looks into the heart."
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone also gave the film a positive review, calling Tandy's performance "glorious" and opining, "This is Tandy's finest two hours onscreen in a film career that goes back to 1932." The performances of Tandy and Freeman were also praised by Vincent Canby of The New York Times, who observed, "The two actors manage to be highly theatrical without breaking out of the realistic frame of the film."
On the other hand, the film has been criticized for its handling of the issue of racism. Candice Russell of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel described Freeman's character as having a "toadying manner" which was "painful to see", and said that the film was ultimately "one scene after another of a pompous old lady issuing orders and a servant trying to comply by saying 'yassum.'" The film's nomination for Best Picture at the Academy Awards over Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing was controversial. Lee later reflected on the controversial decision by saying that Driving Miss Daisy was "not being taught in film schools all across the world like Do the Right Thing is."

Awards and nominations

Driving Miss Daisy received 9 Academy Award nominations and also achieved the following distinctions in Oscar history:
AwardCategoryNomineeResult
Academy AwardsBest PictureRichard D. Zanuck and Lili Fini Zanuck
Academy AwardsBest ActorMorgan Freeman
Academy AwardsBest ActressJessica Tandy
Academy AwardsBest Supporting ActorDan Aykroyd
Academy AwardsBest Screenplay Based on Material from Another MediumAlfred Uhry
Academy AwardsBest Art DirectionBruno Rubeo and Crispian Sallis
Academy AwardsBest Costume DesignElizabeth McBride
Academy AwardsBest Film EditingMark Warner
Academy AwardsBest MakeupManlio Rocchetti, Lynn Barber and Kevin Haney
American Comedy AwardsFunniest Actor in a Motion Picture Morgan Freeman
American Comedy AwardsFunniest Actress in a Motion Picture Jessica Tandy
American Comedy AwardsFunniest Supporting Actor in a Motion PictureDan Aykroyd
Berlin International Film FestivalGolden BearBruce Beresford
Berlin International Film FestivalBest Joint PerformanceJessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman
BMI Film & TV AwardsFilm Music AwardHans Zimmer
Boston Society of Film Critics AwardsBest ActressJessica Tandy
British Academy Film AwardsBest FilmRichard D. Zanuck, Lili Fini Zanuck and Bruce Beresford
British Academy Film AwardsBest DirectionBruce Beresford
British Academy Film AwardsBest Actress in a Leading RoleJessica Tandy
British Academy Film AwardsBest Adapted ScreenplayAlfred Uhry
David di Donatello AwardsBest Foreign ActressJessica Tandy
Golden Globe AwardsBest Motion Picture – Musical or ComedyDriving Miss Daisy
Golden Globe AwardsBest Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or ComedyMorgan Freeman
Golden Globe AwardsBest Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or ComedyJessica Tandy
Grammy AwardsBest Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture or for TelevisionHans Zimmer – Driving Miss Daisy
Kansas City Film Critics Circle AwardsBest ActorMorgan Freeman
Kansas City Film Critics Circle AwardsBest ActressJessica Tandy
Los Angeles Film Critics Association AwardsBest ActorMorgan Freeman
NAACP Image AwardsOutstanding Actor in a Motion PictureMorgan Freeman
Nastro d'ArgentoBest Female DubbingMicaela Giustiniani
National Board of Review AwardsBest FilmDriving Miss Daisy
National Board of Review AwardsDriving Miss Daisy
National Board of Review AwardsBest ActorMorgan Freeman
National Society of Film Critics AwardsBest ActorMorgan Freeman
National Society of Film Critics AwardsBest ActressJessica Tandy
New York Film Critics Circle AwardsBest ActorMorgan Freeman
New York Film Critics Circle AwardsBest ActressJessica Tandy
New York Film Critics Circle AwardsBest DirectorBruce Beresford
Political Film Society AwardsHuman RightsDriving Miss Daisy
Producers Guild of America AwardsOutstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion PicturesRichard D. Zanuck and Lili Fini Zanuck
Retirement Research Foundation, USAWise Owl Award – Television and Theatrical Film FictionDavid Brown, Richard D. Zanuck and Lili Fini Zanuck
Writers Guild of America AwardsBest Screenplay Based on Material from Another MediumAlfred Uhry
20/20 AwardsBest ActressJessica Tandy
20/20 AwardsBest Adapted ScreenplayAlfred Uhry
20/20 AwardsBest Costume DesignElizabeth McBride

Oscar controversy

In 2015, The Hollywood Reporter polled hundreds of Academy members, asking them to re-vote on past controversial decisions. Academy members indicated that, given a second chance, they would award the 1990 Oscar for Best Picture to My Left Foot instead.

Soundtrack

The film's score was composed by Hans Zimmer, who won a BMI Film Music Award and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture or for Television for his work. The score was performed entirely by Zimmer, done electronically using samplers and synthesizers, and did not feature a single live instrument. There is a scene, however, in which the "Song to the Moon" from the opera Rusalka by Antonín Dvořák is heard on a radio as sung by Gabriela Beňačková.
Similarities have been noted between the main theme and the "plantation" folk song "Shortnin' Bread". The soundtrack was issued on Varèse Sarabande.

Home release

The film was also successful on home video. It was released on DVD in the United States on April 30, 1997, and the special edition was released on February 4, 2003. The movie was first released on Blu-ray disc in Germany, and was finally released on Blu-ray in the United States in a special edition digibook in January 2013 by Warner Bros.