The place is the deep South, the time 1948, just prior to the Civil Rights Movement. Having recently demolished another car, Daisy Werthan, a wealthy, sharp-tongued Jewish widow of 72, is informed by her son, Boolie, that henceforth she must rely on the services of a chauffeur. The person he hires for the job is a thoughtful, unemployed Black man, Hoke, whom Miss Daisy immediately regards with disdain and who, in turn, is not impressed with his employer’s patronizing tone and, he believes, her latent prejudice.

But, in a series of absorbing scenes spanning twenty-five years, the two, despite their mutual differences, grow ever closer to and more dependent on each other until they eventually become almost a couple. Slowly and steadily, the dignified, good-natured Hoke breaks down the stern defenses of the ornery old lady as she teaches him to read and write and, in a gesture of goodwill and shared concern, invites him to join her at a banquet in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. As the play ends, Hoke has a final visit with Miss Daisy, now ninety-seven and confined to a nursing home, and while it is evident that a vestige of her fierce independence and sense of position remains, it is also movingly clear that they have both come to realize they have more in common than they ever believed possible—and that times and circumstances would ever allow them to admit publicly.

Driving Miss Daisy reinforces the moral lesson that every stage of our life is precious and should never be taken for granted.