Lucas Jaye, Brian Dennehy
“DRIVEWAYS” My rating: B+
83 minutes | No MPAA rating
Andrew Ahn’s “Driveways” sneaks up on you. Instead of wowing us with look-at-me style it quietly seduces us with its substance and deep appreciation for its characters.
That it also features one of the last screen appearances of the late great Brian Dennehy only makes this gently emotional effort that much more affecting.
Single mom Kathy (Hong Chau) and her eight-year-old son Cody (Lucas Jaye) have driven for several days to settle the estate of Kathy’s sister Alice. Upon arriving at Alice’s home (the film was shot in upstate New York) they discover her dwelling crammed floor to ceiling with junk. Unbeknownst to Kathy, Alice was a serious hoarder.
The electricity has been turned off (there’s a back bill of $900). Oh, yeah…there’s also a dead cat decaying in the second-floor bathtub.
Instead of putting the house on the market and getting out of Dodge, the pair are stuck with a Herculean cleanup effort. They end up sleeping on a screened-in porch. Kathy spends every day hauling away the detritus of her sister’s life; Cody slowly gets to know Del (Dennehy), the semi-grumpy widower living next door.
Someone with a short attention span might argue that not all that much happens in Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen’s screenplay. No, not much. Just life.
“Driveways” is less about plot than about its characters. Chau’s Kathy is something of a tiger mom when it comes to protecting Cody, who suffers from the double whammy of being both incredibly sensitive (he throws up a lot) and way too smart to connect with other kids (his mother calls him “Professor”).
Which is not to say she’s that tough. After a few days of cleanup Kathy sneaks off to spend an hour or two in a local tavern. She just wants to feel like an adult for one evening.
As for the blue-collar Del, he quickly becomes young Cody’s go-to choice for a nonjudgmental mentor. At first you wonder if Del’s military cap — he’s a Korean War veteran — signifies a narrow view of people of Asian descent. Nope, he’s just proud to have served. And not having any grandkids of his own, he comes to relish the opportunity to impact a young life.
Lucas Jaye is a terrific find, a child actor of immense appeal whom you never catch acting.
In its setup “Driveways” has a lot in common with 2008’s “Gran Torino” in which Clint Eastwood played an embittered oldster who begrudgingly befriends a couple of teenaged Hmong refugees who move in next door. But whereas Eastwood’s film relied on violence and melodrama, Ahn’s finds strength in normal everyday decency.
That decency comes from many sources. Like the realtor (Robyn Payne) who takes one look at the mess Kathy has inherited and kindly observes: “Maybe your sister got comfort from all these things.” Or the old farts who share a table with Del at the local Bingo game (Jerry Adler portrays his best bud, who is clearly in the early stages of dementia).
Ahn’s debut film, “Spa Night,” won the John Cassavetes Award at Sundance in 2016. That was an openly gay-themed effort; “Driveways”
is more circumspect. As he grows up Cody may very well discover that he’s gay, but “Driveways” doesn’t lean on that possibility. That’s not what interests the filmmaker.
Rather, Ahn is looking for moments of grace generated by intersecting lives. And he finds them.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 
Love this review and trailer. Can’t wait to see the film!
You keep alerting me to hidden gems. Thank you!