Stuff I Like That’s Good — Day 2 — Driving Miss Daisy

Or, why Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy in a movie together was the best thing since sliced bread.

**Very minor spoilers for Driving Miss Daisy follow**

I referenced this film in my introductory post, calling it an arguably perfect piece of entertainment. And truth is, I’ve been meaning to blog about it for a VERY long time.

Ditto, since it’s my favorite movie of all time.

I grew up watching Driving Miss Daisy. It was one of the very first “grownup” movies I saw as a kid, and I’ve loved it ever since that very first viewing.

And what’s not to love? The film’s got Jessica Tandy as a no-nonsense, Jewish southerner, Morgan Freeman as her easy going, African-American chauffeur, and Dan Aykroyd as Miss Daisy’s wealthy son and Hoke’s employer.

Perfect casting aside, the film lives and breathes on the character interactions. Being set during the civil rights era allows the movie to delve into the race politics between the white upper class and black lower class, which is a task the film handles well.

I’ve often read complaints about how, since Do The Right Thing was also a film from 1989 that dealt with racism, that Driving Miss Daisy was a weak movie because it’s “feel good” in compassion to the former.

That argument, my friend, is comparing apples to oranges. But make no mistake: both works manage to stand on their own, telling stories from opposite sides of the same coin.

Driving Miss Daisy excels in highlighting the subtle racism among certain people of the era. While more hostile forms of racism (such as portrayed in Do The Right Thing) did (and still does) exist, Driving Miss Daisy spends it’s time focusing on the racism of people like Miss Daisy and her son Boolie, both of whom act as if they aren’t racists until their dialogue indicates otherwise. Boolie thinks it would harm his reputation to go to a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speech. Miss Daisy feels superior to the blacks around her, and tries to maintain her ego by finding petty things to get onto them for. The film spends a good deal of it’s time unraveling Miss Daisy’s racist biases, using her eventual friendship with Hoke to break her out of her shell.

And I’ve barely talked about Hoke’s character up until this point, but it was important to understand where he comes from in contrast to Miss Daisy.

Hoke is the protagonist of the movie, and the only character with any sort of tangible goal. Morgan Freeman plays him spot on, giving him layer after layer of complexity, and making him the perfect foil to Miss Daisy’s personality. Hoke experiences a great deal of character growth as the film unfolds, and we get see him take a journey that ends with him as an old man, well-seasoned from his time with Miss Daisy.

And I haven’t even gotten to the actual driving yet! Driving Miss Daisy has some amazing driving scenes, because they feel so much like real life, significantly drive the character development, and serve to cast a light on the film’s depiction of the era. Here’s just one example:

Hoke: [Driving, crossing into Alabama] Did I evre tell you about the first time I ever been outside the state of Georgia?
Miss Daisy: No, when was that?
Hoke: Oh, a few minutes ago.

Driving Miss Daisy. It’s a movie I like, and it is good. Check it out sometime.