Seven years ago, director Peter Farrelly used the Toronto International Film Festival\u00a0as a springboard to glory: His road movie \u201cGreen Book\u201d had a relatively low-profile premiere on the Tuesday of the festival\u2019s second week, won the TIFF People\u2019s\u00a0Choice Award and went on to take down the favored \u201cRoma\u201d and win the Oscar for Best Picture. But that kind of Farrelly lightning isn\u2019t likely to strike again this year with the road movie \u201cDriver\u2019s Ed,\u201d directed by Farrelly\u2019s brother and frequent co-director Bobby, which premiered on Friday, late in this year\u2019s festival.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that \u201cDriver\u2019s Ed\u201d has any ambitions to be another \u201cGreen Book.\u201d In keeping with many of this year\u2019s TIFF films, it\u2019s an audience movie, not an awards movie. But it\u2019s a pretty tepid audience movie, a coming-of-age high school comedy populated with characters who\u2019ve been kicking around since before John Hughes: the kid who outsmarts the demanding but hapless principal, the super-smart but social awkward Asian student, the stoner who\u2019s got more on the ball than you realize\u2026<\/p>\n
More from TheWrap<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n A director in his late 60s isn\u2019t necessarily disqualified from making an effective teen comedy, but \u201cDriver\u2019s Ed\u201d is mildly amusing at best.\u00a0It\u2019s a good-natured and good-hearted film without much of the edge or hilarity the Farrelly brothers brought to \u201cDumb and Dumber\u201d or \u201cThere\u2019s Something About Mary\u201d \u2013 serviceable, but there\u2019s a reason it\u2019s being dropped at the end of the festival, several days after much of the non-Toronto-based audience has gone home.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not exactly a great next step for Sam Nivola, who had a key role as the youngest son of Jason Isaacs and Parker Posey in \u201cThe White Lotus\u201d but went from one of the year\u2019s most provocative TV shows to a film whose provocations don\u2019t go much beyond a few drug jokes, a raucous frat party and a fair amount of profanity in lines that include Molly Shannon\u2019s school principal telling driver\u2019s ed teacher Kumail Nanjiani that he\u2019s good at talking to kids because \u201cyou like them a f\u2013k of a lot more than I do.\u201d<\/p>\n Shannon and Nanjiani are two of the most notable adults (and goofiest characters of any age) in the film, but the story focuses on the kids: Nivola as Jeremy, a talented but lovestruck high school senior who can\u2019t seem to grasp that his girlfriend is not quite as committed to their relationship now that she\u2019s off to college; Sophie Telegadis as Evie, a voice of reason and the love interest that Jeremy is too blind to see; Mohana Krishnan as Aparna, the would-be valedictorian who\u2019s petrified that she\u2019s risking her scholarship to M.I.T. by going off in a borrowed driver\u2019s ed car with her classmates; and Aidan Laprete as Yoshi, the class drug dealer who used to be a brain before his mom died. \u201cI\u2019m still smart, by the way,\u201d he tells Aparna at one point, \u201cI just don\u2019t give a f\u2013k about anything.\u201d <\/p>\n The four are thrown together in a driver\u2019s ed class taught by Nanjiani, a lackadaisical kind of guy who also has both arms in casts and gives a series of different but equally implausible explanations for how he broke them. But Jeremy decides he has to save his relationship by borrowing the school\u2019s car and heading to his girlfriend\u2019s college, and the others go with him because \u2026 well, because there wouldn\u2019t be a movie if they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a road movie full of, y\u2019know, wacky escapades: accidentally dropping their cell phones in a river, tangling with a guy who robbed a hot dog stand, evading the school security guard who figures catching them will be his ticket back on the police force that kicked him out and eventually crashing a wild fraternity party when they get to the campus.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Shannon and Nanjiani do their best to provide some energy, but they\u2019re stuck in a classroom getting updates on the phone, which puts a damper on what they can actually do. Plus, Shannon wants to keep the whole thing quiet for fear that a stolen driver\u2019s ed car will look bad on her permanent record. \u201cI\u2019m not letting three dips\u2013ts and the valedictorian f\u2013k me out of tenure,\u201d she declares.<\/p>\n Is it a spoiler to say that that everybody learns and everybody grows? Probably not. It\u2019s also not a surprise, and neither is anything else in this by-the-numbers teen comedy that finds some fresh new faces but doesn\u2019t give them anything very new to do. Nivola creates a pleasantly clueless character while Telegadis makes the strongest impression among the teens, but it\u2019d be nice if the vet in charge of it all had something that could challenge his cast more than this.<\/p>\n The fact that \u201cDriver\u2019s Ed\u201d is an R-rated teen comedy may make it something of an anomaly these days, but it\u2019s a fairly gentle and mostly goofy one that\u2019s essentially spinning its wheels.<\/p>\n The post \u2018Driver\u2019s Ed\u2019 Review: Teenage Road Comedy Doesn\u2019t Really Go Anywhere<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Seven years ago, director Peter Farrelly used the Toronto International Film Festival\u00a0as a springboard to glory: His road movie \u201cGreen Book\u201d had a relatively low-profile premiere on the Tuesday of the festival\u2019s second week, won the TIFF People\u2019s\u00a0Choice Award and went on to take down the favored \u201cRoma\u201d and win the Oscar for Best Picture. 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