1989: Driving Miss Daisy

Screenplay by Alfred Uhry
Adapted from the play Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhry

Daisy Werthan can no longer drive, so her son, Boolie, hires Hoke Coleburn to be her chauffeur, against her will. Ultimately her need for transportation overcomes her stubbornness, and she grudgingly allows Hoke to start driving her. Despite their differences in wealth, religion, education, and race, Daisy and Hoke form a close bond that lasts for the rest of their lives.

As is generally the case when plays are adapted into films, particularly when both scripts have the same author, the differences are minimal. Almost all of the dialogue is exactly the same, although the film makes some significant additions. The most striking change was the addition of more people. The play only has three people in the cast: Daisy, Hoke, and Boolie. While the film does mostly focus on those three, and most of the added people are extras, there are two important characters who are mentioned repeatedly in the play that we actually see in the movie: Boolie's wife, Florine, and Daisy's maid, Idella. They act pretty much exactly as they're described in the play, so their addition is still very consistent with the original. Florine doesn't do much, so I don't feel like her presence really enhances the story, but Idella is a great addition. I think the story greatly benefits from having her as an intermediary between Daisy and Hoke, which she kind of is offstage in the play, but I enjoy getting to actually see her interact with them in the movie.

Apart from scenes relating to Florine and Idella, the biggest change is during the road trip scene. The movie adds two police officers who question Hoke and Daisy suspiciously for no reason. Nothing terrible comes of this, and it's a relatively brief incident, but it helps to emphasize the deep-seeded prejudice of the society, mostly against black people, but also against Jewish people. This fits in well with the rest of the story, since although bigotry isn't the main focus, it's an ever-present undertone throughout, and this addition helps further tie this together. The play doesn't give much of a feel for how the outside world viewed this unlikely couple, and the film's use of these policemen to do that helps put the story into perspective. In many ways, the world was changing very fast during the time this story was set, but in others, not nearly fast enough. And unfortunately, that can still be said today. But it's nice to have this sweet story to remind us that friendship can prevail even when surrounded and discouraged by bigotry.

At the time of blogging, this is the second most recent winner of the three awards I've blogged about: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Picture, and Best Actress. The most recent was two years later, but before I get to that I'll enter the 1990s with yet another Best Picture (but not Best Actress) winner to also win this award: Dances with Wolves, based on the novel by Michael Blake.