John Reid

Driving Lessons -- A funny and touching coming-of-age story about a shy teenage boy who tries to escape the influence of his domineering mother. His world changes when he starts working for a retired actress who introduces him to the ways of an unconventional life.

Oscar® nominee Laura Linney (Kinsey) stars as Laura Marshall, an overzealous, evangelical Christian do-gooder who fills her home with down-and-out boarders, including a senile, cross-dressing murderous mute. Desperate to expand his horizons, Laura's shy teenage son Ben (Rupert Grint, of Harry Potter fame) lands a job tending to self-proclaimed "Dame" Evie Walton (Oscar® nominee Julie Walters, Billy Elliot), an over-the-hill actress with the mouth of a drunken sailer and an insatiable lust for life. The battle for Ben's soul begins as Evie shanghais Ben away from his repressive roots and takes him on an adventure that transforms him from boy to man - almost over his raging mother's dead body! A winning entry at the 2006 Moscow International Film Festival, Driving Lessons is an experience Stephen Farber of Movieline calls "a delightful coming-of-age story."

IMDB review: I felt obliged to watch this movie, it had such a reputation. I finally just got hold of it, released in the UK after several years of being banned on DVD/Video, uncut in cinemas. Considering it supposedly micro low budget it was considerably better than I expected. The script was superbly written and the performances excellent. The film is very dark, probably one of the darkest films I've ever seen, on a par with Mac Naughtons Henry portrait of a serial killer. Like Henry the question is begged one would anyone want to make a film so bleak and disgusting? What was the motivation for the Director to write such a nihilistic work. Brady in his Director's commentary explains that the political context at the time in the UK was such that films that glamorized violence(when violence was perceived to be entertaining) were being passed by the censors and any films that showed realistic violence, pain, suffering etc were perceived by the censors to be dangerous and potentially damaging viewing material and were subsequently immediately banned. Brady said that his motivation for making Boy Meets Girl was to provoke and challenge the censors into a public clarification of this problem and arguing that irreparable damage was being done to the sensibilities of British audiences in that they were slowly and insidiously being desensitised to violence by watching films where the pace of the narrative never allowed the time to portray or dwell on the subsequent casual effects of...

IMDB review: I felt obliged to watch this movie, it had such a reputation. I finally just got hold of it, released in the UK after several years of being banned on DVD/Video, uncut in cinemas. Considering it supposedly micro low budget it was considerably better than I expected. The script was superbly written and the performances excellent. The film is very dark, probably one of the darkest films I've ever seen, on a par with Mac Naughtons Henry portrait of a serial killer. Like Henry the question is begged one would anyone want to make a film so bleak and disgusting? What was the motivation for the Director to write such a nihilistic work. Brady in his Director's commentary explains that the political context at the time in the UK was such that films that glamorized violence(when violence was perceived to be entertaining) were being passed by the censors and any films that showed realistic violence, pain, suffering etc were perceived by the censors to be dangerous and potentially damaging viewing material and were subsequently immediately banned. Brady said that his motivation for making Boy Meets Girl was to provoke and challenge the censors into a public clarification of this problem and arguing that irreparable damage was being done to the sensibilities of British audiences in that they were slowly and insidiously being desensitised to violence by watching films where the pace of the narrative never allowed the time to portray or dwell on the subsequent casual effects of...