Driveways (2020)
Directed by Andrew Ahn
Eight-year-old Cody is spending the summer in an unfamiliar setting with his mom Kathy. Though he can't relate to the neighbourhood kids, things take an unexpected turn when he develops an unusual friendship with grouchy old Del from next door.
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3 films that influenced Driveways
What critics say influenced Driveways
As the family is Asian, some might rush to compare the film to “Gran Torino,” in which Clint Eastwood not only said “Get off my lawn,” but did so while pointing a shotgun.
(Suffice to say that this is not the indie version of Pixar’s “Up” or Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino.”)
Because we have seen movies before, we may expect that we are about to see some variation on Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino play out, and maybe you could characterize Driveways in that fashion.
But we ‘ve already seen that movie — it was called Gran Torino , and it starred Clint Eastwood.
Writers Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen leaned on their own experiences to come up with a story that, on the face of it, has been told many times before, director Andrew Ahn coming up with the idea of emphasizing Kathy and Code’s outsiderness by making them Asian (and leading us to expect some “Gran Torino”-style racism from Del).
Given that Kathy and Cody are of Asian descent, this is the point at which I expected the film to trend toward something like Gran Torino , with shocking, dramatic storytelling about hate, anger, and changing minds.
It is a tremendous performance from Dennehy, who will turn 81 this year and who first appeared on TV screens in 1977 but had to wait 5 years for Stallone to come along with Rambo and propel him to stardom.
The recently deceased Brian Dennehy, best known as the fatally stubborn Sheriff Will Teasle in the first “Rambo” film, delivers a lovely, semi-gruff, valedictory performance in “Driveways.”
Two films come to mind: “Columbus” (2017) and “Searching” (2018), both star Korean American actor John Cho.