Learning to Drive

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Isabel Coixet/Starring: Ben Kingsley, Patricia Clarkson, Grace Gummer, Sarita Choudhury and Jake Weber

Spanish director Isabel Coixet (My Life Without Me, Elegy) helms Learning to Drive; her adaptation of Katha Pollitt's essay of the same name. The film arrives in theaters with little advance notice. I found this strange, given the considerable talents of its two principal actors: Ben Kingsley and Patricia Clarkson. With an accomplished director, cast and intelligent source material, one might think the film would be a sure thing. Think again. All conflict in Coixet's film is very light and unlikely to upset seniors attending a Saturday afternoon screening. Its attempts at profundity: the car as a metaphor for self-empowerment and Zen-like here-and-nowness are trite and reaching.

Patricia Clarkson is Wendy, a moderately known book critic who discovers her husband Ted (Jake Weber) has left her for another woman. In spite of his callous disregard for her feelings, Wendy's love for him still burns. Her daughter Tasha (Grace Gummer), who is supposed to be in college, is living happily on a farm in Vermont; an act of activism Wendy doesn't entirely approve of.

When Tasha invites her mother to the farm, Wendy decides to take driving lessons in hopes of being able to drive herself. The move is supposed to represent self-determination; a quality Wendy lacks.

Her instructor, an Indian cab-driver named Darwan (Ben Kingsley) meets her one night after a cab ride in which she and her husband have a relationship-ending shouting match. Not long after, Wendy contacts Darwan for driving lessons. Her initial instruction is a disaster, which discourages her from taking a second lesson but Darwan's professional pride makes him persistent.

We learn Darwan is a political refugee who has since became naturalized. His Sikh identity becomes an object of oppression in his native country. With no wife and child, he shares a house with Indian refugees in Queens, many of who are illegal.

As the driving lessons continue, Darwan and Wendy become friendly. The lessons also become life lessons, as Darwan's instruction is supposed to serve (at least for the audience) as ways to cope with the real world.

Forging ahead without her husband, Wendy begins to date but finds it less than satisfying. Meanwhile, a marriage is arranged for Darwan and his wife Jasleen (Sarita Choudhury), who makes her way from India to be with him. Darwan finds life with Jasleen rather difficult, for his work keeps him away from home while her fear of her new surroundings keeps her isolated. Making an attempt to learn English, Jasleen picks up a few words from a children's program, only to be told by Darwan the words are actually Spanish. Darwan finds his new wife's self-imposed isolation frustrating but his patient nature prompts him to encourage her rather than scold.

Though an attempt is made to make Darwan three-dimensional, somehow the character still comes off as a genial guru without flaws, in spite of Kingsley's best efforts. The character of Wendy seems also sadly underwritten. If this story is based on real life people and events, it also seems rather cliched and the characters appear as lazily-conceived people from a B-movie drama. Because of this, the story walks an uninspired straight line. The movie does tantalize with the passing possibility of true friendship between Darwan and Wendy but it sadly doesn't happen.

Most every problem in the film is ironed out in orderly fashion. Jasleen succeeds at meeting people and venturing out of the house, Wendy earns her license, buys a car, becomes empowered and sheds her husband's influence, while her daughter Tasha, an uninteresting peripheral character, leaves the farm to return home. Darwan finds a wife and the makings of happiness, in spite of his permanent exile from India. I normally avoid giving away such information regarding characters but their respective arcs aren't difficult to ascertain within the first five minutes of the film. I expected a lot more from a story based on an essay. Do these people really exist in real life? If so, they must be more fascinating than they appear here. This comes as a surprise, for Coixet's films are usually populated with more nuanced characters.

I really wanted this movie to work. I've always held Kingsley and Clarkson in the highest esteem but as talented as they are, actors can only do so much with material so broadly drawn. This should be a touching story; Indian refugee and Manhattan book critic become friends, but it doesn't stretch itself. I won't read the article the film is based on; it would be frustrating to learn the real story has power and unpredictability.

Learning to Drive isn't horrible but it isn't good either. It's difficult saying anything about the movie because I find myself barely inspired enough to comment. If it weren't for Kingsely, Clarkson and Coixet, I may have skipped this post. Take my advice, wait for the film to stream.

The Maze Runner

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Wes Ball/Starring: Dylan O'Brien, Will Poulter, Blake Cooper, Thomas Brodie Sangster, Kaya Scodelario and Patricia Clarkson

Continuing the teens-in-dystopia story trend, Wes Ball's first feature film The Maze Runner bucks the reverse gender type-casting we've seen in The Hunger Games and Divergent with it's legion of male characters.

Movie audiences are threatened with genre-fatigue and if the thought of sitting through one more film of this stripe induces groaning, one can breath easier knowing The Maze Runner brings something new and thrilling to the table.
Some elements of the genre are familiar; the young individual's struggle against a government or Big Brother-like entity he or she is almost powerless to comprehend or effectively fight; the struggle to prove oneself to peers, and the realization that said individual is exceptional in some way, which is revealed in the course of the story.

But Wes Ball's film, unlike its aforementioned cousins, relies heavily on mystery; much of it cleverly witheld from the audience until late in the story. The who or what behind the mystery is what fuels the narrative engine; keeping us riveted and engaged.

Dylan O'Brien plays Thomas, a young man suddenly deposited into a community of males mostly his age by way of an elevator that rises from below ground to the surface of what is called The Glade. Thomas is unable to offer the boys who pull him from the lift his name, for it is common for new arrivals to not remember their names or identities.

What exactly is The Glade? We (and Thomas) learn it is a lush, sprawling plot of land bounded by towerering walls of impenetrable-looking concrete the inhabitants can neither see over or climb. This strange place serves as a kind of prison whose purpose and design the boys/young men have yet to fathom.

Thomas meets the community leader Gally (Will Poulter); who is efficient, orderly and intolerant of anything or anyone that upsets the order he's helped maintain.

Life in the Glade seems utopian; the community grows its own crops, builds its own shelters and respects Gally's de facto leadership. But no utopia can truly be regarded as such when its inhabitants are denied access to the outer world, which is what motivates Thomas when he sees what appears to be an opening in one section of the massive, concrete wall. Before he can enter, he is stopped and warned about what lies outside the Glade. We learn an intricate maze, whose walls shift nightly, denies the boys escape from whatever and wherever they find themselves. Patrolling the maze are cyborg-like creatures called Grievers; a kind of spider-scorpion hybrid who are fast, nearly indestructible and deadly. As someone ominously states; noone has ever encountered a Griever and lived to tell the tale.

In the community, a group with a specific skill set are Maze-runners, who explore the maze daily in hopes of finding a way out. After Thomas defies the community rule about not venturing out into the maze, he encounters a Griever and barely escapes, though another runner is "stung" and nearly killed. Thomas' action earns him Gally's wrath, thus creating an adversarial relationship between the two young men. Gally sees Thomas' arrival as something inimical to the community while Thomas sees Gally's disdain for everything that disturbs the status quo as dangerous complacency. Thomas' regard for Gally is very reasonable, considering the leader's risk-aversion and his stubborn refusal to organize a more proactive escape.

One day, the community's attention is drawn to the lift and the arrival of another abductee. This time it is a female; one who knows Thomas' name, which perplexes and renders everyone suspicious. Elements from Thomas' past begin to appear in his dreams and memories and the young woman, Teresa (Kaya Scodelario) appears in his recollections, though he is as baffled as his Glade-mates as to the significance of her presence.

The film dispenses expository information thriftily, which helps stoke our curiosity. It is also refreshing to see characters employ their reasoning and wits as they close in on the mystery of the maze and who has plotted the Glade inhabitants' abduction. If the film has a socio-political agenda, it may be allegorized in the final shot, which carries a subtle, environmental message.

I can say no more about the plot lest I expose the mystery but I will say Thomas learns he and Teresa were unwitting or not-so-unwitting participants in theirs and the community's abduction.

The performances are sound. I especially liked Will Poulter as Gally; the Glade's source of menace and oppression. Dylan O'Brien also acquits himself well, giving us our first male Katniss Everdeen.

A plot-driven film like The Maze Runner tends not to place a high premium on visuals but the CGI-rendered Maze and Grievers look substantial and convincing.

The reasons behind the maze and the abductions stretch and strain plausibility but it is intriguing and we learn the whole story is but a teaser for the next installment in what will be--gasp!--a franchise. But unlike Divergent, whose future iterations threaten audiences with future drowsiness, The Maze Runner stimulates more curiosity and questions. Whether they can be satisfactorily answered is up to the filmmakers. We care what happens to the characters--an always elusive but crucial consideration when crafting a franchise. If a ludicrous plot fails the audience, a film can still be redeemed with compelling characters who think and feel. And if the creators of the Maze Runner franchise commit this seemingly obvious idea to heart and head, failure will most likely not be an option.