The Oscar Project #62: Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

by Chris Marshall:

I often complain about the tendency of actors playing Southerners to "over-Southern," but it really hasn't been that big of a problem so far during The Oscar Project. Driving Miss Daisy, on the other hand, runs with every possible opportunity to do it. I don't expect great acting out of Dan Aykroyd, but it's particularly off-putting when an actual Southerner, namely Morgan Freeman, does it.

That being said, Freeman did a superb acting job in spite of the minstrel show voice he adopted. As did Jessica Tandy, for that matter. I imagine that somebody less attuned to the nuances of a Southern accent would assume they were pitch-perfect in their roles.

Tandy, playing the role of an elderly Jewish woman in Atlanta in the mid-20th century, begins the film in her late 60s. She is widowed but still cares for herself, although she does have plenty of help from her black (her race is important) housekeeper. After having an accident while backing out of her driveway, her son (Dan Aykroyd) decides she needs a chauffeur. He hires a man named Hoke (Morgan Freeman) and tells him that no matter how difficult his mother is, he should carry on. She has no power to fire him, so there's no need for him to fear for his job. His goal is to make her accept him.


What follows is a 25 year relationship, one that vacillates between antagonism and friendship. Despite the difficulties they face, we know that Daisy genuinely beings to like and respect Hoke. At the end of the movie, even though she is almost completely senile, when she says to him, "You are my best friend," we believe it.

Hoke driving Miss Daisy

Driving Miss Daisy is often viewed as a film about racism. Maybe it is, or at least is supposed to be, but that's not really how I perceived it. Daisy is grumpy and crotchety, but it didn't really seem like most of her combativeness was rooted in racism. A lot of it seemed based around a fear of losing her independence, and a great deal had to do with her just not being very nice. As a Jewish woman, she had plenty of experience with prejudice, but she definitely had a naivete about the problems faced by black people. She didn't understand how her own experiences were comparable to Hoke's.

Ultimately, Hoke's hiring is mutually beneficial. Daisy has someone to keep her company as she becomes older and more needing of help. Hoke has a steady job, is able to buy his own car, and even learns how to read under Daisy's tutelage. She becomes as much a friend to him as he is to her.

I think the way you read this film is key to how successful you think it is. If you view it as a treatise on racial relations in the Deep South, then it is deeply flawed. But if you instead look at it as a story about the relationship between two individuals outside of a larger context, then it works very well. Daisy and Hoke are two believable characters, and it isn't that hard to imagine this story really happening.

While it wasn't perfect, this seemed like a decent way to end the 1980s, a decade that has had some serious ups and downs. Now it's time to soldier on into the 90s, that longest of decades. I'm so close to the end I can taste it.