Do you know any girls with a crush on likable Rupert Grint, who plays comic-relief second banana Ron Easley in the "Harry Potter" movies? If you do (and if you don't mind exposing them to an R-rated movie), take them to the British-made "Driving Lessons"; they might enjoy it, the way puzzled young Beatles fans were happy to sit through "How I Won the War" for a glimpse of John Lennon. On the other hand, the movie may crush their Grintophilia forever.
A scenic but tedious and surprise-free coming-of-age story seasoned with such familiar "indie" ingredients as Christian-bashing and a Zach Braffian folk-rock soundtrack, "Driving Lessons" will be remembered as the movie in which we got to see Ron Weasley utter the s-word and the f-word (numerous times), drink wine, and hook up with a Scottish hottie who introduces him to Nick Drake and sex (in that order). With his trademark Brian Jones red moptop and mopey sad-sack/puppy-dog facial expressions intact, Grint looks like he just stepped off the Hogwarts Express. This time, however, he plays Ben Marshall, the teenaged son of a tolerant but weak-willed vicar (Nicholas Farrell) and a domineering, hypocritical shrew (it's sad to see the usually irresistible Laura Linney in such a humorless role).
A writer of romantic poems, Ben -- described as "too weird" by the beautiful classmate he fancies -- makes an incongruous companion for involuntarily retired Evie Walton, a foul-mouthed, once prominent actress who hires the lad as her assistant after he answers her newspaper ad. Dame Evie is played by Julie Walters, and she and Grint make a good team. They ought to: Walters plays Ron's mother, Molly Weasley, in the Harry Potter movies.
Unfortunately, the life lessons delivered here by writer-director Jeremy Brock are telegraphed from the get-go, as Evie's eccentric egocentricity, knowledge of Chekhov and Shakespeare and reckless, improvisational approach to life (she's been married three times, "once to an actor, once to an English Lord and once to a Californian") prove inspirational in helping Ben transcend his "social autism." The finale finds Ben literally staking his independence by moving into a tent in his backyard, where presumably he will exalt in the clean air of freedom until at least the first rainfall or hunger-driven raid on the refrigerator. The movie is at Malco's Ridgeway Four.
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