As the Harry Potter literary franchise prepares for its final days with the release of J.K. Rowling's seventh and final volume, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows," the staggeringly successful film counterpart still has a few more years left before it too will shut down for good. The trio of lead actors -- Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson -- have grown up before audiences' eyes, spending nearly a decade ensconced in roles that will make it mightily difficult to sustain a career in Hollywood, possibly doomed to be "that character" for the rest of their lives.

With the threat of typecasting dangling overhead, it's little wonder that, at least for Radcliffe, his downtime has been spent shattering public perception -- blinding horses in "Equus" on the London stage, playing a bawdy version of himself on Ricky Gervais' "Extras" -- which have no doubt loosened up his career prospects considerably. Watson, on the other hand, hasn't yet branched out from the Potter series (and may never do so), leaving Grint, the shaggy-haired, slightly ungainly best pal, as the only other member of the main Potter trio to step outside the series and try his hand at a different role.

If all of his choices are as tepid as that of Driving Lessons, he'll have a long, comfortable career, but it won't be in the spotlight; written and directed by Jeremy Brock, Driving Lessons is standard-issue coming-of-age material that takes Batty Old English Actress (Julie Walters, of Billy Elliot fame) and Repressed Shy Christian Boy (Grint) with Domineering Hypocritical Jesus-Loving Mom (a wasted Laura Linney, whose spotty accent might make for a good drinking game), adds a sprinkle of truly odd secondary characters (does Jim Norton's mute, murderous cross-dresser really need to be in this movie?) and lets the good times roll. Except that Driving Lessons never truly takes flight -- Grint's work is passable, but he seems to be playing a watered-down variation on Ron Weasley; I think a few years out of the spotlight, giving Harry Potter a chance to fade a bit from view, will allow Grint to have a more artistically satisfying career. Driving Lessons, which enjoyed a blink-and-miss-it theatrical run in the States, isn't exactly the kind of flick I could see someone actively building a career upon. That said, it's innocuous and worth throwing on if a rainy afternoon has you trapped indoors; otherwise, feel free to pass this one by.

The Video:

Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, Driving Lessons looks magnificent. Vivid colors, crisp lines and deep, rich black levels make this recently shot film pop off the screen. It's a very warm, detailed image with hardly any noticeable defects.

The Dolby Digital 5.1. track doesn't wow the speakers, as Driving Lessons is primarily a character-driven drama fueled by copious amounts of dialogue, but it still renders speech with no distortion or dropout and also allows John Renbourn and Clive Carroll's score to be heard with great clarity. Optional French and Spanish subtitles are also included.

A 17 minute, 22 second making-of featurette kicks things off, followed by four deleted scenes (playable separately or all together for an aggregate of three minutes, 40 seconds), six minutes, 48 seconds of outtakes and trailers for Offside, The Italian, Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, House of Flying Daggers, Riding Giants and Dogtown & Z-Boys completing the disc.

Driving Lessons, which enjoyed a blink-and-miss-it theatrical run in the States, isn't exactly the kind of flick I could see someone actively building a career upon, like Rupert Grint is trying to do, as the Harry Potter theatrical franchise winds down. That said, it's innocuous and worth throwing on if a rainy afternoon has you trapped indoors; otherwise, feel free to pass this one by. Rent it.