Ben Kingsley, Patricia Clarkson to reunite for “Learning To Drive”

PanARMENIAN.Net - Production is underway in New York on Learning To Drive, a film that stars Ben Kingsley and Patricia Clarkson, and reunites them with director Isabel Coixet. They worked together previously on Elegy, Deadline said.

The film is based on a Katha Pollitt essay first published in The New Yorker in 2002. Jake Weber, Grace Gummer, and Sarita Choudhury also star. Dana Friedman and Daniel Hammond are producing, and Sarah Kernochan wrote the script. Gabriel Hammond is Executive Producer.

“We’ve been working to make this film for nearly ten years, but having Sir Ben and Patricia step into these roles makes the wait worthwhile,” said Friedman.

Clarkson plays a Manhattanite who takes driving lessons from a Sikh instructor (Kingsley) who is living in Queens under political asylum. Kingsley comes off what for my money was one of the great villain performances in a Marvel superhero movie when he played Mandarin in Iron Man 3. He next stars in Ender’s Game. Clarkson just wrapped The Maze Runner.

“Celebrated for her award-winning political columns, criticism, and poetry, Katha Pollitt offers something new in this poignant, hilarious, and sometimes outrageous collection of stories drawn from her own life. With deep feeling and sharp insight, she writes about love, sex, betrayal, heartbreak, and much more: what she learned about her parents from reading their FBI files, the joy and loneliness of new motherhood, the curious mental effects of a post-college stint proofreading pornographic novels, and the decline and fall of practically everything, including herself. Unafraid to say what others only think and acknowledge what others won’t admit, Katha Pollitt surprises and entertains on every page,” a review published at Amazon said.