Driveways
Directed by Andrew Ahn
Written by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen
Starring Hong Chau, Brian Dennehy and Lucas Jaye
Running time: 1 hour and 23 minutes
by Ian Hrabe
In the past few weeks Andrew Ahn’s Driveways went from being a quiet and moving little indie movie that might delight a few people on VOD to a film featuring one of the final leading performances from legendary character actor Brian Dennehy. While this was already a bittersweet film, it’s made even more so watching Dennehy. He’s absolutely terrific here, and it’s impossible to watch this film without feeling the weight of his very recent passing.
Dennehy plays Del, a widowed Korean War vet whiling away the final years of his life in his big empty house in Poughkeepsie. His only real escape is playing bingo down at the VFW hall with the other Korean War vets in town. When his deceased neighbor’s sister Kathy (Hong Chau) and young son Cody (Lucas Jaye) roll up next door to clean out the house and put it on the market, Cody and Del strike up an unlikely and heartwarming friendship that drives the film’s themes of intergenerational relationships, community and belonging.
If that sounds a little sappy, well, it is a little sappy but in a way that’s really nice considering the state of the world we are living in. What keeps this from feeling like a Lifetime Original movie are the performances from Chau and Dennehy and Ahn’s deceptively excellent direction. It’s a quiet movie that tonally reminded me a lot of Kogonada’s Columbus and, like that film, Ahn’s focus on human connection elevates the material. There is a version of this script that would be a total dud with a lesser director at the helm, and Ahn really proves himself as a filmmaker to watch here. However, the real beating heart and soul of this film is Hong Chau, whose beautifully nuanced performance is one of those breakouts that makes you wonder where she has been all your life. Her work as Lady Trieu in HBO’s Watchmen series put her on my radar, and her performance here only solidifies her as a selling point for any movie going forward.
Driveways is a nice way for Brian Dennehy to go out. His bread and butter was straight-to-video B movies and, even though it looks like he has a few of those still in the pipeline, his performance is so human and natural you wonder why Quentin Tarantino didn’t try to revive his career ten years ago. It’s unfortunate that Driveways feels like escapism, because a world where people are just nice to each other shouldn’t feel like a fantasy. Optimism isn’t particularly in fashion, and that’s why it’s so wonderful to just sit down and spend an hour and a half watching something that is just plain nice where the performances are great and the emotions feel true.
On demand starting May 7.