Both an obvious product of ’90s nostalgia and the definitive cure for it, Bobby Farrelly‘s terminally innocuous “Driver’s Ed” can be described as a youth comedy, but whose youth? Though technically it is set in the current day, because smartphones exist and someone mentions Ritalin, the sensibilities of both director and screenplay (by Thomas Moffett) are so trapped in the past that the whole movie feels like a defrosted caveman sporting a pair of earbuds — which is essentially the plot of 1992’s “Encino Man,” apropos of nothing much except that after “Driver’s Ed,” all your comparisons will for a time gesture toward pre-millennial pop-cultural artifacts. 

It’s hard to remember that era being quite so unfunny, though, nor quite so tame, which is especially disappointing given that Farrelly, working with his brother Peter on films like “There’s Something About Mary” and “Dumb and Dumber” was responsible for some of its best and most iconically risqué gags. Nothing in “Driver’s Ed” even aspires to “Mary”‘s semen-hair-gel moment, and the closest we get to the “frank or beans” sequence is some frat dude at a party who randomly punches guys in the groin, causing them unhilariously to double over in pain. The rest of “Driver’s Ed” — aside from some effortful F-bombing and the occasional reference to boners — is just as wholesome as apple pie used to be before “American Pie” (1999) defiled that simile forever. 

Speaking of wholesome, here comes Jeremy (Sam Nivola), the film’s clean-cut, starry-eyed, curly headed lead, an 18-year-old high school senior determined to make a success of a long-distance relationship with his recently graduated girlfriend Samantha. Movie-mad Jeremy (whose conversation is peppered with namechecks of only the most canonically revered of Hollywood films) is so convinced he and Sam will stay together until he can graduate and join her at college, that when she drunk-dials him and expresses some doubt, he goes into a tailspin. The next day, during driver’s ed class, left momentarily in the instruction car by the substitute teacher played by Kumail Nanjiani in two broken-arm casts for wackiness, Jeremy decides on a whim to steal the vehicle and drive the three hours to see Sam in person. 

However, in the car with him are three classmates: prim, rule-obeying valedictorian Aparna (Mohana Krishan); apathetic, drug-dealing stoner Yoshi (Aidan Laprete); and perky yet cynical Evie (Sophie Telegadis), whose feathered, flippy, pastel-barette bob gives extreme mid-’90s Drew Barrymore/Reese Witherspoon and does not give it back. You do not need to be a hair historian to know that no young person has worn her hair like this, outside of “come as your mom when she was your age” costume parties, in about 30 years. 

Anyway, despite the group not being particularly close, and despite all three others expressing their disapproval of Jeremy’s plan in no uncertain terms, they all suddenly decide to join him because that way we get to have a movie. Once on the road, they have a bunch of bizarre yet oddly flat encounters — with a three-legged cat, a robber, a cop, a refrigerated truck full of vintage furs and a hot lesbian with an open-top car and a large St. Bernard — before arriving at Sam’s college having learned some inevitable lessons about life, love and friendship. Meanwhile, the usually reliable Molly Shannon delivers an inexplicably manic performance of exasperated adult ineptitude as the school principal trying, with a lot of faffing about but very little urgency, to track the kids down.

To be strictly fair, “Driver’s Ed” doesn’t only reference the 1990s high school comedy. It also has an only too obvious yen for the 1980s, and specifically for “The Breakfast Club,” which is cribbed from here in a brief makeover scene and the cloyingly extended finale when the kids all marvel at just how much they’ve bonded. But while John Hughes’ soon-to-be-Criterion-approved classic has its implausibilities, it never attempts any setpiece as frankly ludicrous as the one in “Driver’s Ed” where three 2025 teenagers stand dumbly to one side while a fourth attempts to “hide” their beloved iPhones on a tiny ledge on a bridge over a river, with utterly predictable results.

Not that this is the fault of an appealing young cast gamely doing their best to inject energy and personality into inert, exposition-heavy, joke-light dialogue that could not sound less like the way modern teenagers talk if every second word was “rad.” “Everybody changes all the time,” Shannon’s principal scoffs at the doggedly faithful Jeremy at one point. It’s a shame that “Driver’s Ed” seems to believe that, in the decades since the high school comedy first came of age, teenagers haven’t changed so much as a hair on their heads.

Film

The Baltimorons
Director: Jay Duplass
Duplass Brothers Productions
In Theaters: 9.12.2025

I’m the kind of guy who starts getting the Christmas decorations primed and ready in late October, but even I must admit that September is jumping the gun to start ringing in the holiday movie season. However, for that reason, it’s a good thing that The Baltimorons isn’t necessarily selling itself as a holiday film, and it’s more a festival film than a festive one. Nevertheless, this indie comedy romance has the makings of a minor new Christmas classic.

On Christmas Eve, Cliff Cashin (Michael Strassner, Young Rock), a once-suicidal recovering alcoholic and former improv comic, is headed to dinner with the family of his fiancée, Brittany (Olilvia Luccardi, Money Monster, Orange is the New Black), when he chips a tooth. In a desperate search for a dentist who is willing to work on Christmas Eve, Cliff finds Dr. Didi Daw (Liz Larsen, Madoff, Mr. Robot), a brassy, no-nonsense woman in her early 60s whose own holiday has been upended by her ex-husband’s remarriage. What should have been a quick fix unravels into a night of comic misadventures: a towed car, a run-in with Cliff’s old comedy circle and an uncomfortable detour to Didi’s family gathering. Along the way, Cliff’s quick wit and raw honesty clash with, and eventually soften, Didi’s guarded exterior. As the two navigate Baltimore’s chaos together, these two lonely misfits find themselves finding an unexpected and welcome gift they didn’t even know they needed: a kindred spirit.

The Baltimorons, which takes its title from an improv sketch that Cliff used to perform back in his heyday, is a quirky two-hander character comedy and May-December romance that plays a bit like a mashup between Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Before Sunset. It’s neither as broadly laugh-out-loud funny as the former or as traditionally romantic as the latter (Strassner and Larsen aren’t exactly Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy circa 1995), but it’s the simplicity and real-world, blue collar reliability of it all that makes it so infectiously charming. The screenplay by Strassner and director Jay Duplass (Jeff, Who Lives At Home) is well-structured, lively and sensitive and it puts the character into situations that make for a memorable whirlwind night without feeling contrived or ridiculous. 

The centerpiece of the evening comes when the emerging duo decide to stop at an improv performance that Cliff’s friend is involved in. When Cliff gets pulled on stage, it’s the first time he has tried to perform improv in front of an audience since the event that caused him to attempt suicide. Now, it’s a longstanding pet peeve of mine that when it comes to movies about standup comedians, the routines we witness are rarely actually funny, and it would be easy enough to make that complaint here, especially if you’ve never done improv before. While we don’t get nearly as strong a sense of whether or not Cliff is particularly funny on stage as we do off, that’s not the point of the scene. It’s about returning to the scene of a traumatic event, and saying, “Yes, and” to life with a scene partner who is willing to stick it out even if they bomb. 

The Baltimorons is an actor’s movie all the way, and it’s the unconventionally captivating presence of the leads that makes it special. Strassner brings a great deal of heart and vulnerability to Cliff, but it’s Larsen who had me repeatedly checking IMDb, certain that I must have heard of her before, because she most certainly had to be a recognized star at some point (she wasn’t). While it’s hard to say whether the vehicle she’s been given will lead to that stardom at this point in her life and career, it gives her one film where she gets to be a leading lady with whom I couldn’t help but fall in love. 

The Baltimorons is a pleasant and likeable little film that provides a refreshing alternative to a lot of the dark and heavy fare that tends to hit theaters in the fall. It’s definitely too early for Christmas, but it’s a nice and hopeful gift nonetheless. —Patrick Gibbs

Read more film reviews by Patrick Gibbs:
Film Review: Spinal Tap II: The End Continues 
Film Review: Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale

Reactions to the new Elvis movie by Baz Luhrmann are beginning to roll in, praising the upcoming documentary about the iconic musician.

What are people saying about Baz Luhrmann’s new Elvis movie?

Luhrmann’s newest movie based on Presley isn’t like the the 2022 biopic he made that starred Austin Butler. Instead, his new documentary, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, features long-lost footage of Presley from his residency in Las Vegas from 1969 and through the 1970s, as well as previously unseen footage from other tours from Presley’s life.

The film recently had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and according to those who have seen it, it’s one of the more exciting concert films ever made. According to Variety’s Owen Gleiberman, the movie is “a revelation,” and captures “just how intoxicating Elvis Presley was when he began to perform live in Las Vegas in 1969 and the early ’70s.”

TheWrap’s Steve Pond echoed those sentiments, calling the documentary “not revelatory for people who’ve seen the existing films from the era, it’s the most imaginative, generous and entertaining look at a time in which Elvis’ comeback still had real life to it.”

The New York Post’s Johnny Oleksinski also had high praise for the movie, calling it a “rousing musical act” that also dives into the persona of Elvis as well. “For those who do not have a room in the house devoted to Elvis memorabilia, or care a lick about the guy, EPiC is still an energizing experience. To my mind, there’s nothing better than observing the greatest artists of all time do what they do best — unvarnished.”

EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert has no official wide release information as of yet.