Live Life Team
Based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Alfred Uhry, “Driving Miss Daisy” was 1989’s Academy Award winner for Best Picture.
Miss Daisy (Jessica Tandy, in an Oscar-winning role) is a wealthy, Southern widow struggling to come to terms with her old age. After she crashes her car, her son insists on hiring a driver, Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman). While Miss Daisy may be strong-willed, she has met her match in Hoke’s insistent personality. Their early scene when Hoke takes her for her first drive to the store is well known and parodied, but it is a fine scene, well acted by both Freeman and Tandy. However, in the midst of a racially segregated South of the 1950s and 60s, Hoke and Miss Daisy’s unlikely friendship withstands multiple trials and heartbreaks.
To date, Jessica Tandy was the oldest actress to win a Best Actress Academy Award. And while her performance is terrific, Morgan Freeman’s breakout performance is one of the film’s highlights. Until 1989, Freeman was known mainly by Broadway audiences. Luckily, Daisy launched him into the public notice, providing opportunities to contribute to films like “Seven” and “Million Dollar Baby”.
Considering the film’s multiple successes, Director Bruce Beresford strangely failed to receive even a nomination from the Academy (the first time a Best Picture winner did not receive a Best Director nomination since 1932’s “Grand Hotel”). Nevertheless, Beresford’s contribution is tangible. “Driving Miss Daisy” is a terrific film that transcends the label of a movie about the South – it’s a film about friendship.
