The Farrelly brothers should be rather synonymous with crude, hilarious, and downright ingenious comedy, but something between the late ‘80s to early ‘00s and now has changed and that brand of sexualized, crude, frankly dumb comedy no longer is what comedy fans crave, or rather not what gets made anymore, and sometimes you need to catch up with the modern times. However, now going solo, Bobby Farrelly tries his hand at making a teenage romp that has snippets of his earlier works (specifically there is one clear reference to There’s Something About Mary (1998) but it’s gone in a blink of an eye) and while Driver’s Ed ends up being harmless and enjoyable enough, it doesn’t land close to the classics that he and his brother came up with in the ‘90s like Dumb and Dumber and Kingpin (1996). Times change, attitudes don’t, and if we got a crass raunchy deranged adolescent comedy like those in 2025, maybe it would play better to that immature audience who still laughs at the most annoying sound in the world.
The movie focuses on, you guessed it, a pent-up teenager who’s stuck in high school as his girlfriend has moved on to college (they’re a year apart — this isn’t *that* kind of movie). Jeremey (Sam Nivola) tries to find a way to visit his girlfriend, Samantha (Lilah Pate), at Chapel Hill to surprise her and save his relationship. However, he doesn’t have a drivers license, is sort of broke so cannot afford a bus fare, and is desperate. What does he decide to do? While in his driver’s ed class with friends and classmates, Evie (Sophie Telegadis), Aparna (Mohana Krishnan), and Yoshi (Aidan Laprete), he steals the driver’s ed car from substitute teacher Mr. Rivers (Kumail Nanjiani) and ventures to get to Samantha. The film’s attempt to make a joke-a-minute story gets a little dragged out, takes an emotional detour, and underutilizes a lot of its comedic prowess by sidelining Nanjiani (Eternals; The LEGO Ninjago Movie) and Molly Shannon (Promising Young Woman), playing the principal.
L-R: Mohana Krishnan as Aparna, Aidan Laprete as Yoshi (background), Sam Nivola as Jeremy, and Sophie Telegadis as Evie in DRIVER’S ED. Photo courtesy of TIFF.
The script penned by Thomas Moffett (An Actor Prepares) has a lot going for it, but there was clearly a point where the script either got neutered or Moffett never went for the home run. There are moments where it strives to be something crazier, raunchier, and less safe than the movie ends up being and it just falls into conventional tropes of modern age comedies. There is nothing inherently wrong with being safe, but confining the movie to just a hair over 100 minutes fails to let anything truly breath or develop past tropes and standard characterizations, however it is pleasant enough and brings enough energy and entertainment to scratch the surface-level comedic itch for the audience.
As previously mentioned, both Nanjiani and Shannon are criminally underutilized here — especially the former as a substitute driver’s ed instructor who has shattered both of his arms and is in a full arm and chest cast. The comedy is ripe for the picking but is left to wither untouched. The comedy leans heavily on Nivola (White Noise) and Telegadis (One Stupid Thing), for the most part, with Laprete (Swiped) as the comedic relief throughout, and they manage to curate a world for their characters to strive in. The comedy is mostly situational with some specific line delivery, but nothing physical about it. They have the timing down, but the chemistry of the will-they-won’t-they trope is incredibly overplayed to the point of exhausting the audience, making it hard for them to deeply care about the outcome of the mission and the main plot of the movie itself.
While Driver’s Ed is harmless fun, that is its biggest downfall. It is a Farrelly comedy movie. Audiences expect something more than just surface-level passable — and that’s all this is. While the cast delivers, the comedy gurus are unilaterally underutilized and that is the biggest cardinal sin of the movie. Let these four younger actors shine by letting them do something with their comedy prowess and break out of their box; otherwise, this just feels like another meandering coming-of-age story with a comedic hook. It is not bad, but it is not jumping up any coming-of-age rankings nor is it meeting expectations for a Farrelly comedy.
Screening during Toronto International Film Festival 2025.
For more information, head to the official Toronto International Film Festival Drivers Ed webpage.
Final Score: 3 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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