An Ordinary Tale

A Beief Commentary & Review of the film, “Driveways”
by John Bennison, Mountain Shadow Director


I have to begin this brief review and commentary with a personal note. In early August of last year, Germaine and I were on our annual weeklong summer vacation near Traverse City, Michigan. We always schedule our getaway to catch a few films at Michael Moore’s film festival there. That’s where we first saw the film, “Driveways,” on the festival circuit.

For some reason, I was immediately drawn to the film, and tried unsuccessfully to book it for our Mountain Shadow audiences before it got signed up with a distributor. Though unsuccessful at the time, I made a point of meeting Andrew Ahn, the director, when “Driveways” screened once again, this time at the Mill Valley Film Festival in October.

Why was I so determined to share this short, simple, rather sentimental story with you?

While in actuality, the set and story location for the film was upstate New York, it was eerily reminiscent of the small town neighborhood of my own boyhood. (In the script, the character who plays the mother tells an inquiring neighbor she’s actually from Kalamazoo where I grew up myself!) In truth, I also probably identified to some degree with the shy, introverted young character of Cody.

But I’d like to think the film – with a script written by a duo from Chicago and rural Minnesota themselves -- could resonate with plenty of other viewers who could recognize this simple, straightforward story as some modern-day version of an American classic.

A synopsis: A reclusive spinster who lived in small, non-descript, somewhere kind of a town has died alone; leaving her house and everything in it to her estranged and much-younger sister, Kathy. By “everything” it means a life-long accumulation of stuff; where a lifetime of acquisition never got anywhere close to that latter life stage of dispossession. As a result, Kathy has had to take a temporary leave from her job in Grand Rapids; in order to clear out a heap junk, and sell her sister’s property.

Kathy’s sidekick is her shy young son, Cody. And Del is the gruff, old next door neighbor of few words. He’s a widower, whose days of solitude are only interrupted by the occasional trip to the VFW hall for a game of bingo. That is, if his senile friend remembers to pick him up.

Thus, the predictable plotline for a typically-odd kind of sweet friendship to emerge will depend on the credible sort of authentic ordinariness of the characters, ably portrayed.

Kathy will wrestle with her unresolved issues with her dead sister, as she sorts out the remains of that life, and her regrets. Cody will come into his own, with the help of a grandfather figure he otherwise never would have had. And Del will repurpose his days, finding fulfillment once again by living for the sake of someone else.

As in the real world, so too in this brief tale, all good things must come to an end. But not before a long heartfelt soliloquy by an old man, and the consoling embrace of his young friend.

POSTSCRIPT: In retrospect, with Brian Dennehy’s death in the month this film was being shown at Mountain Shadow, Del’s closing collection of memories, regrets and fina resignation can be heard as the epitaph of a legendary actor. jb