B-

It’s rather astonishing that this little movie, which Harry Potter’s chum Ron Weasley, also known as Rupert Grint, made in the interval between the latest installments in that mega-franchise, is as pleasant as it is. After all, though “Driving Lessons” is a semi-autobiographical piece by Jeremy Brock (who also directed), the tale of a retiring teen who’s liberated from the stifling orbit of a demanding parent through an eventful road trip has a lot in common with “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” with Grint as that film’s Cameron. Added to the mix is that the parent is his waspish mother, who’s also unfaithful to his laid-back, distant father–a device reminiscent of “The World of Henry Orient.” And as if all that weren’t enough, the Bueller figure this time around is a wild, extravagant older woman–it’s “Auntie Mame” time. But somehow this weird mixture works.

Grint plays Ben, a shy, bookish teen, the son of a put-upon Anglican clergyman (Nicholas Farrell). Both are under the thumb of Laura (Laura Linney), Ben’s self-righteous, imperious mother, who feigns uprightness but meanwhile uses her son to cloak the affair she’s having with her husband’s young curate (Jim Norton). When she takes an elderly man who’s just lost his wife into their home as an act of self-promoting charity, she suggests that Ben might get a summer job, and he does, as general factotum to an elderly actress, Evie Walton (Julie Walters), an endearingly eccentric old lady who both orders him about and urges him to find himself. Ultimately she tricks him into driving her to Edinburgh for a poetry reading though he doesn’t even have a license, and there he has his first sexual encounter, though it unfortunately leads to his failure to meet his obligations to Evie. After he returns home, his mother–furious that he went on the trip without her permission–orders him to have no further contact with the actress, but ultimately she and Evie will confront one another over his soul, and Ben’s father too will have to rouse himself in the face of his wife’s infidelity. It goes without saying that in the end Ben will find his way through the thicket of family troubles and learn to make his own choices.

There’s not much new in all this; although Brock’s script is supposedly based on his own experiences one summer with Dame Peggy Ashcroft, it greaty resembles previous movies like those mentioned above, and some of its subplots–like the one involving that elderly houseguest–don’t come off. But in this case familiarity doesn’t breed contempt, because the cast is so winning. Walters is an adept scene stealer, effortlessly making even Evie’s brashest conduct amusing, and she handles the inevitable tear-jerk moments well, too. In Grint’s hands, Ben can seem a bit neurotic, but he remains an endearingly klutzy fellow. And Farrell does a good job as his wimpy father. Linney has a more difficult time playing his mother; she tries to alleviate the brusqueness with a hint of vulnerability, but as written the role still has an element of plastic villainy to it. The rest of the cast is okay if not outstanding, and technically the movie is modest but solid, as befits a picture made by a group calling itself Rubber Tree Plant Productions. High hopes, anyone?

The makers of “Driving Lessons” may have learned a bit too much from previous movies, but they’ve put the results to pretty enjoyable use. Their effort may not go to the top of the class, but it earns a low pass.

Grade: B-

Even though it’s about the baleful effects of miscommunication, the basic message comes through loud and clear in “Babel,” the latest multi-story film from the team of screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga and director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (“Amores Perros,” “21 Grams”). Perhaps too much so. By the close of the picture you’ll feel as though you’ve experienced more an intricately-constructed, vibrantly shot illustrated lecture than a gripping drama. The didacticism and puzzle-form mentality of “Babel” ultimately militate against its dramatic power: there’s more of cinematic contrivance than honest humanity in it.

The film links together, in the mode for which the Arriaga-Inarritu partnership has become famous, what appear to be very separate stories–in this case, four of them. One involves a rural family in Morocco, whose father gives his young sons Yussef and Ahmed (Boubker Ait El Caid and Said Tarchani) a rifle to protect their goats from predators. The second concerns an estranged American couple, Richard and Susan (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) touring Morocco and traveling by bus past the field where the boys’ animals are grazing. One of the youngsters decides to take a pot shot at the vehicle, striking Susan. As she lies in a rural village while a distraught Richard and the sympathetic local guide Anwar (Mohamed Akhzam) try to arrange emergency treatment and evacuation, the police search for what are presumed to be the terrorists who shot her. Meanwhile the distraught Richard calls home in California, telling their housekeeper Amelia (Adriana Barraza) that she’ll have to stay with the couple’s two young children Debbie and Mike (Elle Fanning and Nathan Gamble), though she’s planning to go to her son’s wedding in Mexico; eventually she decides to take them with her–and her loose-cannon nephew Santiago (Gael Garcia Bernal)–a decision that takes a dangerous turn when, after the celebration, they try to pass through the border station on their return and encounter a suspicious guard. Meanwhile, in a seemingly unrelated story in Tokyo, Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi), a deaf-mute girl, tries to cope with her mother’s death, her own sexual longing and her estrangement from her father (Koji Yashuko). A concluding twist links this morose, brooding story to the others.

Each of these plot threads has dramatic potential, and the cast work hard to fulfill it. Though Blanchett is stymied by a character that spends most of her time virtually unconscious and Bernal by one whose actions are pointlessly reckless (indeed, stupid), Pitt gives a haunted air to the devastated Richard, Barraza brings intensity to the housekeeper while engaging our sympathy, and Kikuchi makes Chieko both remote and touching (though the physical disabilities of the character make that almost inevitable). Even more impressive are the non-professionals in the cast. Akhzam is entirely convincing as a good man caught in a bad situation, and the children are all remarkably natural and real (curiously Fanning, the only experienced performer among them, is the least persuasive). There are strong contributions from behind the camera, too. Using different film stocks and lenses to give each story strand a distinctive look, cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto manages some truly striking images, and editors Stephen Mirrione and Douglas Crise have intercut the various threads expertly while maintaining the narrative energy that’s the director’s forte. Gustavo Santaolalla’s score provides effective underpinning to the action.

And yet in the end “Babel” seems less than the sum of its parts. One can admire the dexterity of the construction, the quality of the acting, and the expertise of the filmmaking, as well as the desire of the writer and director to make a statement applicable to the difficulty we all have in addressing the very real social and political problems we face as individuals and nations. But while it’s easy to admire the film’s refined craftsmanship, it doesn’t move the heart as strongly as Inarritu and Arriaga might hope. In the final analysis “Babel” is, like its scriptural model, an impressive structure, but one that doesn’t reach the intended emotional heights.