Editor’s note: This review was originally published during the 2025 Toronto International Festival. Vertical will release the film in select theaters and on demand beginning Friday, May 15.
In the new comedy “Driver’s Ed,” Sam Nivola (of “White Lotus” incest fame) plays a lovesick high school senior, Jeremy, who has a passion for movies. He made a short film that won some kind of prize, and he frequently pulls out a little video camera to capture a moment that strikes him as cinematic.
If you told me that “Driver’s Ed” was itself made by Jeremy, I’d believe you; it has all the distracted, hurried texture of typical teenage creative output, batting at big emotions it doesn’t quite understand and zigging haphazardly in various directions as it makes its way to the most obvious of conclusions. Were I his film teacher, I’d give Jeremy a solid B on the assignment but suggest maybe he consider majoring in accounting.
Jeremy didn’t make the film, though. Bobby Farrelly did, he of “Dumb and Dumber” and “There’s Something About Mary” fame. Farrelly is 67, and Thomas Moffett, who wrote the film, is 47. So I’m not sure what their excuse is. “Driver’s Ed” is almost shockingly generic, a boilerplate teen road-trip movie whose only distinct personality trait is having no personality at all.
Were it not for the iPhones and a “lit” here and a “no cap” there, “Driver’s Ed” could have been made in the early 2000s, those waning days of the last great teen cinema epoch. It has all the requisite components: a nerdy-cute boy protagonist, a wise-beyond-her-years dream girl, a funny stoner friend. Its sensitivities are more evolved than those of, say, “American Pie,” but “Driver’s Ed” would otherwise fit cozily alongside any of the movies that “American Pie” inspired.
There are glimmers of originality in Moffett’s script, flashes of idiosyncratic detail that suggest something richer, more personal that could have been had Farrelly not sanded down every edge he could. Farrelly takes broad swings at comedy, but few of his jokes land. Whatever magic he used to have has gone; his instincts have faded, his timing is off.
The film concerns Jeremy’s madcap adventure to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where his bitterly missed girlfriend, Samantha (Lilah Pate), is a freshman at UNC. Jeremy is pretty sure he’s going to lose Samantha to the temptations of college life if he doesn’t do something big. So he steals a driving instruction car and steals off into the Carolina backcountry, with three mismatched fellow students in tow. What ensues is meant to be a comically odyssean journey in pursuit of blind passion. In reality, a few minor things happen and then the movie ends exactly as we expect it to.
At least the company is welcome. Nivola is a charming, natural actor. He breathes something like real life into Moffett’s bland characterization. He has able support from Aidan Laprete as an affable slacker, Mohana Krishnan as a Type A overachiever, and TikTok star Sophie Telegadis, doing very convincing Samaire Armstrong-on-“The O.C.” drag. The kids have a lively, winsome rapport and manage to register some specificity in the face of Farrelly and Moffett’s myriad tired clichés.
The adults don’t fare quite so well. Molly Shannon does her noble best with a Bad Principal role, while Kumail Nanjiani strains for anything resembling humor as a loser substitute teacher. I’m sure both saw some value in working for one of the Farrelly brothers, even in 2025, but they maybe should have held out for something better.
“Driver’s Ed” is kindhearted and well-intentioned enough that one can’t outright hate it. But Farrelly seriously tries that good will as the movie lurches along. Its 98 minutes feel like twice that. The expected tangents and vignettes of a road movie — in this case a meet-cute with a dog owner, a run in with a petty thief who has the whitest veneers I’ve ever seen, a quick trip in the back of a refrigerated truck full of fur coats (yeah I don’t get it either) — are to a one fatally dull and wholly unnecessary.
“Driver’s Ed” has all the arbitrary comedy of a bad improv set, seeming to figure that randomness itself is funny. There are a few laughs to be found in the film, little moments of wit or weirdness, but the film is otherwise a mirthless drag rescued only by its bright leads. Maybe let them make the movie next time.
Grade: C
“Driver’s Ed” premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
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Ref: https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/drivers-ed-movie-review-bobby-farrelly-sam-nivola-1235150449/
