DRIVING MISS DAISY
When a film can totally evoke a time and place and compel you to care so much about the people depicted, then usually one of the following is responsible: director, writer, actors. In the case of this lovely adaptation of Alfred Uhry's play of the same name, all three had a definite hand creating such movie magic! Jessica Tandy gives an Oscar-winning performance as the set-in-her-ways Jewish matriarch of a wealthy Southern family of which only she and her son ( Dan Aykroid in a gently touching and subdued performance ) survive. Worried for his mother's safety after a car accident, he hires a retired, illiterate black man to be her chauffeur ( Morgan Freeman in a equally beautiful performance ). Naturally she is resistant, not only to being carted around but to the idea of losing her freedom to a man of color. Slowly though, over the course of many lovely time-elapsing events, their friendship blossoms out of deep love and kindness of the human spirit. Simply - a treasure!!