Project Detail

Driving Lessons

Synopsis

The Graduate meets Harold and Maude in this rites-of-passage comedy with yet another dreary school holiday coming around for the shy and downtrodden Ben (Rupert Grint). Seventeen years of living in an absurdly conservative and traditional household with his highly-strung and overbearing mother (Laura Linney) and quiet, mild-mannered vicar father have taken their toll on young Ben. While the other kids are out having fun, Ben spends these precious few weeks attending Bible classes, having driving lessons with his mother and helping out at a local old people's home.

However, Ben's world is turned upside down when he's employed by an eccentric retired actress Evie (Julie Walters). Vulgar, dignified and childish all at once, she certainly is not the kind of person Ben expected when searching through the job listings in the stuffy parish magazine, Hello Jesus. Evie enters Ben's life with a cataclysmic force, whisking him away on a series of adventures from camping to performing Shakespeare in the garden, to attending the Edinburgh Festival - where he finally meets a girl much nearer his own age.

Evie's unconventional and often downright bizarre behaviour challenges Ben's beliefs, and forces him to confront the very idea of who he wants to be. Then, when it seems that his new-found freedom is about to be taken away, Ben has to suddenly choose: should he continue to conform, or break out and live his life as his own man?

Driving Lessons is a heartfelt, touching and positively hilarious look at the effect one delightfully eccentric older woman can have on a young man with a lot to learn.

Details

Year: 2006
Type of film: Features
Running time: 95 mins
Format: 35mm
Director: Jeremy Brock 1st Feature
Producer: Robert Jones, Edward R Pressman, Alessandro Camon, Alexandra Ferguson
Editor: Trevor Waite
Screenwriter: Jeremy Brock
Director of Photography: David Katznelson
Sound: Colin Nicolson
Principal cast: Julie Walters, Rupert Grint, Laura Linney

Genre

Comedy Drama

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Rubber Tree Plant Productions

Sales Company

ContentFilm International

19 Heddon Street
London W1B 4BG
UK

T +44 (0)20 7851 6500

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

Suggest amendments