‘Driver’s Ed’ Director Bobby Farrelly on Fate of R-Rated Comedies
Believe it or not, it wasn’t all that long ago when audiences flocked to cinemas in search of a good laugh. But in the past decade, comedies, at least the big-screen variety, have nearly disappeared. Bobby Farrelly, who rode the wave during the genre’s heyday directing hits like “There’s Something About Mary” and “Dumb and Dumber,” thinks he knows why Hollywood stopped making funny movies.
“When you do comedy, it’s risky,” Farrelly says. “The best comedies walk a tightrope. In the last few years, there was a lot of, ‘Oh, you can’t do that. You can’t say that, you can’t do this.’ That reigned in the freedom that you have in a comedy, where you go places and do things that push the envelope. My guess is studios just didn’t want to take the risk.”
Farrelly thinks that kind of oppressive political correctness is fading and that audiences are eager to see movies that eviscerate good taste in order to land a joke again. He’s got a dog in the fight, having co-directed movies with his brother Peter Farrelly that reveled in showing the aftereffects of downing a laxative (who can forget poor Jeff Daniels in “Dumb and Dumber”) or what happens when you substitute sperm for hair gel (bless you and your “There’s Something About Mary” bangs, Cameron Diaz). As evidence, he points to the relative success of last summer’s “Naked Gun,” which rebooted the police satire with Liam Neeson, earning nearly $100 million globally.
“It’s time for comedy to make a comeback,” Farrelly says. “I stopped by a theater to watch ‘Naked Gun’ and everyone was laughing. When one person would crack up it became a contagious thing. People need a good laugh. It’s therapy.”
Farrelly is about to put his theory to the test with “Driver’s Ed,” a very R-rated comedy that premieres at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, where it is looking to land distribution. The film follows a high school student (“White Lotus” breakout Sam Nivola) who steals his driver’s ed teacher’s car to visit his girlfriend in college. There’s plenty of the gross-out jokes and barrier-breaking humor that’s Farrelly’s signature. But making the movie meant producing it outside of the studio system on an indie budget.
“We had to move fast,” Farrelly says. “We couldn’t do many takes. We had to shoot much quicker than I’m used to in order to stay on schedule.”
Farrelly thinks he’s found a true star in Nivola, who shows a lighter side of himself than he displayed as his tortured character on “White Lotus.” And he surrounded the young actor with comedy veterans like Molly Shannon and Kumail Nanjiani, who play his hapless school principal and driving instructor, respectively.
“In our movie, the adults are actually broader and goofier than the kids, who have real problems,” says Farrelly. “And who’s better at doing that than Molly and Kumail?”
Farrelly and his brother Peter haven’t co-directed a movie since 2014’s “Dumb and Dumber To,” focusing instead on solo projects. But the siblings hope to reunite and are collaborating on a musical version of “There’s Something About Mary,” which Bobby Farrelly hopes will hit Broadway next year.
“We’ve had a run where we’re doing our own thing, but we enjoy working together, and I think that we will eventually find a movie that brings us back together again soon,” Farrelly says.
