2019 Movie
Dir. Andrew Ahn · United States of America · English
A quiet story of three loners brought together by unlikely circumstances
This beautiful drama is set over a summer in New York State. Kathy and her son Cody drive to her estranged sister’s house, who had just passed. Kathy plans to quickly sell the house and go back to her normal life but that doesn’t happen when she learns that her sister was a hoarder. Forced to spend more time cleaning the house, her son sparks a friendship with the next-door neighbor, an old Korean War veteran.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, Gran Torino, right? The initial set up is the same but in Driveways is much more realistic, and its characters don’t really need to be redeemed (no one is screaming “get off my lawn” with a shotgun). In fact, the actor who plays the old man, the fantastic Brian Dennehy, brings so much kindness and heart to the story. It ended up his last movie before his passing, and what a beautiful farewell his performance is.
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 the widowed old man from next door.
"The three lead actors carry the movie and do the heavy dramatic lifting gracefully; their sheer presence reaches far beyond the confines of the story."
— Richard Brody
"There can be a very fine line between a movie that is delicate and understated and a movie that is lazy and undernourished. Ahn is slowly perfecting the former."
— Bilge Ebiri
Berlin
1 nom
Spirit Awards
2 noms
Nat. Board of Review
1 win · 1 nom
Bilal Zouheir is the founder of A Good Movie to Watch. He is US-based and a member of the Nevada Film Critics Society. He grew up in Morocco, where he learned English from watching movies. Bilal's work with A Good Movie to Watch is focused on offering an alternative to streaming algorithms, which are often used as commercial tools by streaming services.
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