Learning to Drive

When she is abruptly dumped by her longtime husband (Jake Weber) for a younger woman, starchy Manhattan literary critic Wendy Shields (Patricia Clarkson) is bereft. After 21 years of marriage, she's forced to sell their book-filled Upper West Side brownstone and begin life anew in a small apartment—basically alone for the first time, since her grown daughter (Grace Gummer) has taken up farming in Vermont. Determined to become more self-sufficient but afraid of getting behind the wheel of a car, Wendy hesitantly decides to take driving lessons from dignified Darwan Singh Tur (Ben Kingsley), who gently but firmly refuses to allow her to quit. A devout, highly principled, Indian-American Sikh, Darwan is going through his own crises as an immigrant wearing a turban in post-9/11 New York, often harassed by taunting racists. In addition, Darwan's sister has arranged a marriage, dispatching Jasleen (Sarita Choudhury)—a bride from a neighboring village in India—whom Darwan initially meets when she arrives at the airport (carefully carrying her traditional wedding dress). Adapted from Katha Pollitt's 2002 autobiographical New Yorker essay, filmmaker Isabel Coixet's Learning to Drive is a metaphor-filled, sympathetically nuanced two-hander for Clarkson and Kingsley that is not entirely successful but still teaches some lessons about self-empowerment, reinvention, and simply moving forward. A strong optional purchase. [Note: DVD extras include a photo gallery, and trailers. Bottom line: a small extras package for an uneven film elevated by fine lead performances.] (S. Granger)