Learning to Drive

[projekktor id=’20585′]

Learning to Drive is a comedy film based on an essay by author Katha Pollitt, directed by Isabel Coixet (The Secret Life of Words). It premiered at TIFF last year and was the runner-up in Audience Chocie voting, losing to The Imitation Game. The film stars Patricia Clarkson, Ben Kingsley, Jake Weber, and Grace Gummer.

Wendy (Clarkson) is a fiery Manhattan book critic whose husband has just left her for another woman; Darwan (Kingsley) is a soft-spoken taxi driver from India on the verge of an arranged marriage. As Wendy sets out to reclaim her independence, she runs into a barrier common to many lifelong New Yorkers: she’s never learned to drive. When Wendy hires Darwan to teach her, her unraveling life and his calm restraint seem like an awkward fit. But as he shows her how to take control of the wheel, and she coaches him on how to impress a woman, their unlikely friendship awakens them to the joy, humor and love in starting life anew.

“Wendy is a tough book critic, a woman who has lived in a deep intellectual space,” Clarkson says of her character. “Suddenly, everything shifts—her life falls apart when her husband walks out on her. Through a series of events, she starts to take driving lessons, more a fluke, a lark, a means to an end—she’s looking for allies in the divorce, and so she’s suddenly trying to please her daughter. But in the process of these days with this kind and gentle soul of a man, she comes to realize how foolish she has been in a lot of ways, and her life becomes an emotional life for the first time in a very, very long time.”

Learning to Drive is rated 14A.