Movie Review: Driveways

Driveways **** / *****

Directed by: Andrew Ahn   

Written by: Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen.

Starring: Hong Chau (Kathy), Lucas Jaye (Cody), Brian Dennehy (Del), Christine Ebersole (Linda), Jeter Rivera (Miguel), Sophia DiStefano (Anna). 

 

If character actors are lucky, they get to have a role near the end of their career like Brian Dennehy got in Driveways – released just a short while after the towering actor died. He was always a solid, reliable presence in films and TV shows, and of course a giant on Broadway. But he was the kind of reliable that doesn’t always get noticed or remarked upon. Driveways isn’t quite like Harry Dean Stanton’s swan song in Lucky – but it’s close enough – a performance that reminds you why Dennehy became one of the go-to character actors in the first place.

 

But Dennehy’s role in Driveways is a supporting one. The main characters are Kathy (a wonderful Hong Chau) and her song Cody (Lucas Jaye), who is around 10. They arrive in the quiet, New York town to clean out the house of Kathy’s recently deceased sister – not knowing before they show up that she was a hoarder, which is why she kept her distance from the rest of her family for so long. Basically the plot of the movie is that while Kathy cleans the house, and deals with her complicated feelings towards her sister, Cody bonds with Del (Dennehy), the Korean War Vet who lives next door.

 

A lesser movie would, perhaps, make Del a racist – unsure of this pair of Asian Americans who come next door, and change things – but that’s not this movie. There is Linda (Christine Ebersole) on the other side of Kathy’s sister home, who is casually racist (asking where Kathy is from, and smiling disbelievingly when she responds “Michigan”) – but Del is an easy-going guy. Had they not come up to him, then he probably just would have kept sitting there on his porch. But as is the case with many movies like Driveways, the child, and the old man bond.

 

By now, you probably have an idea in your head as to what Driveways is – and you’re probably half right. Yet, Driveways is a more sensitive, nuanced, and naturalistic film about these three people. It also contains three extraordinary performances. Hong Chau, who was quite good in Alexander Payne’s Downsizing and HBO’s Watchmen, delivers a laid-back performance here. She has spent so long being angry at her sister, for perceived slights, and now when she sees how she lived, it snaps into focus as to why they were estranged, and what she is left with is sadness more than anything. She and Cody are close – and he’s a responsible kid – he doesn’t cause much trouble for her. Jaye is excellent as Cody – it’s one of the best child performances I can recall. He is shy and quiet – he seems to weigh his words before he speaks them, often looking down or away – as if he’s embarrassed to be bothering you with what he has to say. And then there is Dennehy.

 

Dennehy is excellent throughout Driveways. We know he was married, and is now a widow, but he doesn’t like to talk about it much. He has a daughter – who is a lesbian, and he how he handled that when she came out. She now lives far away – but they remain at least somewhat close. He is independent for his age – his friends are slipping more into senility than he is. He is quiet, and seems content. And then comes his final monologue to Cody – a look back at his life right after Korea, when he embarked on a hitchhiking trip, that ended in California, and meeting his wife. Dennehy keeps talking, and basically in about 5 minutes, gives Cody his life story. Cody, perhaps, doesn’t fully comprehend what he is being told – although he knows it’s something important. And by the end, you get the feeling that this is the first, and perhaps last time, Del will verbalize all of this. It is an extraordinary scene.

 

The film was directed by Andrew Ahn, and written by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen. They take a standard issue premise, and imbue with something special. The film is short – just over 80 minutes – but that is the precise right length to tell this story. And with the help of three great performances, they make Driveways something special.