Bruce Beresford
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Green Book (2018)
Directed by Peter Farrelly
influenced by Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
Themes Plot Characters
This misjudgment fails to reverse the lachrymose gimmick of Driving Miss Daisy.
An old-fashioned racial mash-up of Driving Miss Daisy and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Green Book is an exceedingly pleasant two-hander that soars off the pinball chemistry of stars Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali.
Working from a screenplay he co-wrote with Brian Hayes Currie and Nick Vallelonga (son of Tony), Farrelly plays the thing as a buddy road trip/love story—equal parts Driving Miss Daisy, Pygmalion and The Odd Couple—in which the sophisticated, erudite Shirley puts up with Tony “Lip,” a crass, two-fisted galoot who can barely string together a sentence but rarely needs to as a former bouncer at New York’s legendary Copacabana nightclub.
At other times we can see them as the two very different people in Driving Miss Daisy.
Coming to this review of Green Book days into the film’s theatrical release and months after its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, you've likely heard about some of the problems Peter Farrelly’s inversion of Driving Miss Daisy poses to the enlightened critic.
Because the white guy, an erstwhile nightclub bouncer named Frank Anthony Vallelonga and known as Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen), is behind the wheel of a car while the black guy, the pianist and composer Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), rides in back, “Green Book” seems to invite comparison to “Driving Miss Daisy.”
3. Is this an oblique reference to the criminally stupid Silent Fall , starring Richard Dreyfuss as a therapist who takes in a mute orphan and his devious Lolita of a sister (Liv Tyler)?
Lewis Fitz-Gerald (who began his film career in "Breaker Morant" in 1980) offers strong comic support while veteran Keith David (whom many will remember for his fight scene with Roddy Piper in 1988's "They Live") brings the appropriate gravity to his role as the Muslim cleric.
The crowd includes tough-talking docking pilot Fry (High Art’s Radha Mitchell, in the buffed Sigourney Weaver role from Alien ), musclebound, pissed-off convict Riddick (Vin Diesel), and a whole slew of obvious victims-to-be, including self-interested antique dealer Paris (Breaker Morant’s Lewis Fitz-Gerald) and steadfast Muslim cleric Imam (Keith David), who brings three young pilgrims with him to the slaughter.
It benefits from its Australian outback location and a nice blend of Aussie talent, including newcomer Radha Mitchell ("Love and Other Catastrophes") and seasoned veterans Lewis Fitz-Gerald ("Breaker Morant") and Simon Burke ("The Devil's Playground"), which it mixes with such American actors as Vin Diesel ("Saving Private Ryan") and Cole Hauser ("Good Will Hunting").
The Intouchables (2011)
Directed by Éric Toledano
influenced by Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
Themes Plot
It’s no surprise that a Hollywood remake is in the works; this is thoroughly commercial moviemaking that calls to mind an array of high-concept crowd-pleasers, including “Driving Miss Daisy” and “Scent of a Woman.”
The two generate such fun and good will in this Gallic " Driving Miss Daisy " (or " Trading Places ," " Scent of a Woman ," ad nauseam) that you can almost forgive the film's breezy racial stereotyping, cheap comedy and phony-baloney attitudes toward art, culture, class, and quadriplegia.
It's easy to make a cynical diagram of Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano's The Intouchables: Take the basic premise of Driving Miss Daisy and move it to contemporary Paris.
The premise of the French film "The Intouchables" is like a mash-up of " The King's Speech " and " Driving Miss Daisy ," with a dose of "Trading Places" for good measure.
In other words, this is "Pushing Mr. Philippe," a movie to be placed somewhere on the scale between "Driving Miss Daisy" and "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."
The depiction of intrepid Jesuits facing death, unspeakable cruelty and myriad hardships reminded me of Roland Joffe’s heavy-handed “The Mission” (1986) and “Black Robe,” Bruce Beresford’s far more brisk and compelling 1991 film of Jesuits making contact with Native American tribes in 17th century Canada.
This is why my favorite movie about addiction remains the 1983 Tender Mercies, where Robert Duvall is drunk in the first few minutes and then spends the rest of the time struggling with sobriety.
Dr. Walter Perkins (Jack Thompson, "Breaker Morant," "Australia") suggests writing, Nick's former dream occupation, as therapy, and off we go into a land of too much narration by the cast member least able to do it justice.
Crowding the screen and attempting to raid every scene are a Who's Who of celebrity cut-ups: Tom Cruise as a megalomaniac producer whose every utterance is a gross sexual reference; Matthew McConaughey as an agent who will literally cross the jungle to get his client a good deal and a contractually mandated TiVo; Steve Coogan as a twit Brit director with delusions of Blair Witch woodlands terror; Tobey Maguire as a gay priest in one of the four hilarious fake trailers that open the movie and set the tone; and Danny McBride as a pyro expert who lives to blow things up, yet who lost a finger on the set of Driving Miss Daisy .
"It" comic actor Danny McBride plays the special effects man, who once lost a finger on Driving Miss Daisy .
After a while, taking a line from Tender Mercies, it's hard to trust happiness anymore when happiness feels so ephemeral compared to the weight of grief.
Though it starts out as an interesting "Rain Man" murder mystery (there's even a reference to "Rain Man" early on), "Silent Fall" becomes a little too fantastic and obvious to hold its audience very long.
There is, for example, the solution to the murders, which stars little Tim in a performance by an autistic character so remarkable that it makes Dustin Hoffman's work in " Rain Man " look like a warm-up.
(The movie also features a dumb, self-referential joke, in which Miles, giving Iris a quick movie-music tutorial as the two browse the racks of a DVD store, grabs a copy of "Driving Miss Daisy" and burbles on about its terrific score by "Hans.")
If you think the Australian cinematic new wave of the 1970s and 1980s consisted mainly of enigmatic art films like Picnic at Hanging Rock, historical dramas such as Breaker Morant and Gallipoli, or sensitive character studies by Gillian Armstrong or Jane Campion (yes, yes, we know she's a Kiwi, but she made her name in Oz), then you've got a snike in yer living room, mite.
This is not another Driving Miss Daisy-ish story of good people in power lifting up the poor people who work for them; Cuarón is too smart for that.
The Help, written and directed by Tate Taylor from the novel by Kathryn Stockett, belongs to the Driving Miss Daisy tradition of feel-good fables about black-white relations in America, movies in which institutional racism takes a backseat to the personal enlightenment of one white character.
Based on the bestest-seller by Kathryn Stockett, The Help joins Glory , Cry Freedom , Driving Miss Daisy , and many other noble adaptations in filtering the black experience through the white experience, but credit Stockett (and the film) for conceiving a sneaky end-around.
Like Driving Miss Daisy, it paints a pessimistic picture and then steadily brightens it.
Yes, it contains the kind of cathartic, crowd-pleasing moments we remember from “In the Heat of the Night,” “Driving Miss Daisy” and other Oscar-winners about a time when African Americans sat at the back of the bus and suffered the daily humiliation of drinking fountains and toilets “For Whites Only.”
They are, however, notoriously difficult to get right, as are Death Row movies – for every Dead Man Walking, there’s a Green Mile or The Chamber or that really awful one with Sharon Stone that no-one remembers (Last Dance).
“Driving Miss Daisy,” along with “Glory” that same year, vaulted Morgan Freeman into stardom at the age of 52, beginning a 20-year run of screen roles that is, in my estimation, unmatched by any other actor in the modern era: “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” “Unforgiven,” “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Se7en,” “Kiss the Girls,” “Amistad,” “Deep Impact” (portraying a black American president), “Bruce Almighty” (playing God, no less), “Million Dollar Baby,” “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight,” “Gone Baby Gone” and “Invictus.”
Those unclear about the differences between independent and major Hollywood studio productions need do no more than simply compare Gramercy's acclaimed Death Row drama Dead Man Walking and the new Buena Vista release, Last Dance.
As in "Dead Man Walking," there is no doubt she's guilty, but here the killer isn't seeking redemtion.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Directed by Peter Weir
influenced by Breaker Morant (1980)
Visuals
In a way, the film is closer in spirit to the kind of moody Australian historical dramas of the '70s and early '80s in which Weir and his cameraman, Russell Boyd, made their names: a somewhat grander version of such films as "Breaker Morant" or "Gallipoli."
But “The Revenant” shares DNA with a raft of other movies, from the classic exploration adventure “ Black Robe ” and Terrence Malick’s lyrical odes to the natural world to John Ford’s “The Searchers,” whose narrative of captivity is turned on its head here in a subplot involving a Native American warrior searching for a daughter who’s been kidnapped by a group of French trappers.
For obvious reasons, the beleaguered Max is not too thrilled doing the forced "Driving Miss Daisy" gig for this well-dressed murderer.
Sort of a "Driving Miss Daisy" meets "Last Samurai."