{"id":223129,"date":"2025-09-13T08:47:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T08:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/223129\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T08:47:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T08:47:13","slug":"sam-nivola-stars-in-a-generic-teen-movie-throwback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/223129\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Nivola Stars in a Generic Teen Movie Throwback"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the new comedy\u00a0\u201cDriver\u2019s Ed,\u201d Sam Nivola<\/a> (of\u00a0\u201cWhite Lotus\u201d\u00a0incest fame) plays a lovesick high school senior, Jeremy, who has a passion for movies. He made a short film<\/a> that won some kind of prize, and he frequently pulls out a little video camera to capture a moment that strikes him as cinematic. <\/p>\n

If you told me that\u00a0\u201cDriver\u2019s Ed\u201d\u00a0was itself made by Jeremy, I\u2019d believe you; it has all the distracted, hurried texture of typical teenage creative output, batting at big emotions it doesn\u2019t 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\u2019d give Jeremy a solid B on the assignment but suggest maybe he consider majoring in accounting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"'Wasteman'\"<\/a> \"Easy's<\/a> <\/p>\n

Jeremy didn\u2019t make the film, though. Bobby Farrelly<\/a> did, he of\u00a0\u201cDumb and Dumber\u201d\u00a0and\u00a0\u201cThere\u2019s Something About Mary\u201d\u00a0fame. Farrelly is 67, and Thomas Moffett, who wrote the film, is 47. So I\u2019m not sure what their excuse is.\u00a0\u201cDriver\u2019s Ed\u201d\u00a0is almost shockingly generic, a boilerplate teen road-trip movie whose only distinct personality trait is having no personality at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Were it not for the iPhones<\/a> and a \u201clit\u201d here and a \u201cno cap\u201d there,\u00a0\u201cDriver\u2019s Ed\u201d\u00a0could 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,\u00a0\u201cAmerican Pie,\u201d but\u00a0\u201cDriver\u2019s Ed\u201d\u00a0would otherwise fit cozily alongside any of the movies that\u00a0\u201cAmerican Pie\u201d\u00a0inspired.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are glimmers of originality in Moffett\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The film concerns Jeremy\u2019s 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\u2019s going to lose Samantha to the temptations of college life if he doesn\u2019t 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At least the company is welcome. Nivola is a charming, natural actor. He breathes something like real life into Moffett\u2019s 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-\u201cThe O.C.\u201d\u00a0drag. The kids have a lively, winsome rapport and manage to register some specificity in the face of Farrelly and Moffett\u2019s myriad tired clich\u00e9s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The adults don\u2019t 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\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cDriver\u2019s Ed\u201d\u00a0is kindhearted and well-intentioned enough that one can\u2019t 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\u2014in this case a meet-cute with a dog owner, a run in with a petty thief who has the whitest veneers I\u2019ve ever seen, a quick trip in the back of a refrigerated truck full of fur coats (yeah I don\u2019t get it either)\u2014are to a one fatally dull and wholly unnecessary.\u00a0\u201cDriver\u2019s Ed\u201d\u00a0has 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.<\/p>\n

Grade: C<\/p>\n

\u201cDriver\u2019s Ed\u201d premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.<\/p>\n

Want to stay up to date on IndieWire\u2019s film\u00a0reviews<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and critical thoughts?\u00a0Subscribe here<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings \u2014\u00a0all only available to subscribers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the new comedy\u00a0\u201cDriver\u2019s Ed,\u201d Sam Nivola (of\u00a0\u201cWhite Lotus\u201d\u00a0incest fame) plays a lovesick high school senior, Jeremy, who…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":223130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[120921,171,2104,1020,53,11853,64287,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-223129","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-drivers-ed","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-festivals","11":"tag-film","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-reviews","14":"tag-tiff","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115196123435125932","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}