Best movie of this year hands down!

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I really enjoyed this film. It's simple, and just natural. It reminds me a lot of the American film called Saved. Loved that movie too especially when I was in High School. Rupert Grint and Julie Walters are phenomenal. Rupert is a natural at this. Gah I love him! So talented. He shines brighter on his own aside from the HP films. I love seeing him in these different roles,and so far, the ones I've seen him in, he has done exceptionally well. I'll be looking out for more of what Rupert has to offer. Julie Walters is best old person I'd love to have as a BFF. She'd probably yank my head for calling her "old" haha.This film made me want to move to Britain :)

Writer-director Jeremy Brock's British coming-of-age film about a quiet, self kept, son of a preacher and aggressively religious mother, Ben, is pushed into getting a summer job to help a man in need and found one as the assistant to an over the top older actress. Though the movie has times that expose the meaning of the film it is portrayed in what I found to be rather odd and somewhat creepy ways. The two were very lonely people who became best friends very quickly. Brock put the two in a few almost risky scenes together. One scene Evie (the actress) and Ben had went on a drive and Evie ,knowing Ben was not allowed, forced him to stay a couple nights and camp with her. They were shown in the tent and though there was no actual behavior shown, I felt that Evie wanted something more out of Ben. After the camping trip I expected what I feel is something most would and expected Bens' parents, mainly his very controlling and strict mother, to completely freak out but she did not meet my expectations. Bens' mother Laura throughout the film was a rather strange woman. Though she was a very religious woman she had a thing for the Jr. Preacher. I couldn't really understand what the importance was of that with the rest of the film. Bens' father was not a big part in the film. He was in some very key moments of the film but that was it. I didn't really understand the parental role of the film. The parents were not much of an influence to the film and I think that if they had been more like parents that the film would have been more understandable and also more efficient to get the message across. The whole film for me was very unrealistic from the way the characters where portrayed to the way both Ben and Evie became friends. I think Brock did a good job with showing his message in the movie but it did not show its self to me until the ending. Once the message was shown to me the whole film fell into place as far as why Evie had done what she did by taking Ben camping. I don't think Brock could have done a better job with the ending of this film.

If I were sick, too tired to get out of bed and grab a DVD, and stumbled upon Driving Lessons on TV at three in the afternoon on a weekday, I would watch it. Other than that I would never watch that movie under any circumstances ever. The movie opened with various scenes of what seemed to be nonsense and did not seem to have a major plot at any time of the movie.It sort of had a Napoleon Dynamite feel to it (great movie). This could be appealing to someone that is willing to stare at a screen blankly for an hour and 40 minutes with an occasional laugh. The most entertaining scene of the movie comes late when Ben, the main character of the story, tells his big crush, Sarah, off. After an awkward rejection early in the movie he gains some confidence during some character development, and gains the courage to promptly tells her to, "f*** off." Which is interesting because she was trying to tell him to look to God to make him feel better, which is what his mom had been doing the entire movie in a more twisted way. There is also the slightly over-the-top, overbearing, and dominating mother, Laura, that controls everyone around her. She turned me off from the movie because she is just another stereotypical annoying Christian mother that tells everyone they are defying God whenever they would do something she did not want. The most extreme example is when Ben tries to run off with his friend and retired actress, Evie, and his mother tells him that if he continues to leave her ridiculous play, he would be turning his back on God. She also tries to get Ben to get a job so he can give his money to a homeless man, that lives in their home, who had run over his previous wife, which is total crap. That was the type of scene where you feel every teenager cringe at the sound of that request. There was also their supposedly great scene where it was Ben and Evie in a camping equipment store which showed various scenes of them goofing around together. The only though in my head was that this has been done many times before, and done much better at that. One thing I noticed was all of the random camera shots of Ben's mom shooting men around the church seductive looks throughout the movie, making me think that she may be having an affair. I was almost excited to see that encounter when the dad found out and confronted the mom about it. No such luck was found, it was just another random thing that the producer included to confuse me and tease me into thinking something interesting was going to happen. So all in all I give this movie a solid D+.

Rupert Grint is a true find as a British teenager who gets a summer job working as the companion for an eccentric retired actress (Julie Walters) so, at his mother's request, they can help out the destitute elderly man she has taken in. Walters, once one of the most respected actresses of the RSC, ended her career on a British soap opera, and now lives in virtual seclusion. She becomes attached to him, and takes him off on the road against his mother's wishes, giving him an adventure and a view of life he wouldn't have had staying around his ultra-Christian surroundings.Laura Linney, one of the most likable American actresses of today on stage and screen, has usually played the type of character we'd all like to have as a wife, sister or aunt. But here, with a convincing British accent, she plays a very cheery woman who is hiding a lot of secrets underneath, most of which point her out to be a hypocrite and a sinner in secret. That said, her performance is excellent, but she has only a little bit of screen time. Red-headed Gint is a delightfully rich young actor who I hope gets the same popularity as his "Harry Potter" co-star Daniel Ratcliffe, reminding us that not every young actor has to be a pin-up boy looking like Justin Bieber or have a muscular, tanned body the teenage girls all drool over. As for Walters, I have adored this droll actress ever since before "Educating Rita", and here, she moves her character acting skills into Maggie Smith territory.The problem with the movie lies with the screenplay, moving in so many directions and leaving out some important details, so the ultimate result is sweet, yet unsatisfying. But with so few movies being made today that explore the relationships between young people and the delightful eccentrics around them, that is a small complaint. These characters benefit from each other's different kind of wisdoms, and for that, this film is truly worth exploring.