Jeremy Brock's Driving Lessons is, as the title suggests, a coming-of-age tale in which Sam (Harry Potter's Rupert Grint) learns to navigate toward adulthood. Emotionally paralysed by a domineering Christian mother (Laura Linney), the seventeen year old takes a summer job for a has-been actress, Dame Eve (Walters). His mother is horrified, particularly as the manipulating older woman encourages the boy to stand up for himself. Under her sinful watch, he reluctantly drinks and has what may be his first sexual encounter. "Tell God I made you drink!" she says by way of apology before cheating him into driving the pair to Edinburgh: "My tits are a time bomb!" she lies about a non-existent terminal illness. Sam's mother is further enraged but trapped by her marriage-compromising affair with a part-time Jesus.

Despite its feisty tone, Driving Lessons is a comedy with no sudden turns along its route. Brock is unable to coax any freshness from the material, a problem that largely rests in casting. Grint lacks sufficient presence to take his character beyond one dimension: he's not given much to hold on to and we're not given much to care about. The normally excellent Linney is a peculiar casting choice who fails to convince as an uptight English matron; a role that might have gone to Celia Imrie in younger days. Although Walters snaps and fizzes as the amiable, foul-tongued eccentric, she merely revives TV's Mrs Overall to inhabit Dame Eve. Brock ticks the boxes, but brings nothing new to the lesson as we drive to the inescapable conclusion that it's all been done before.

// COLIN FRASER