I read an article in which Ben Kingsley was extolling the virtues of women directors, citing his experience in the recently released film Learning to Drive. He said: “I do feel that it is through the prism, the lens, the perspective of the female eye – the loving female eye – that a man is almost given permission to be vulnerable." This analysis intrigued me and today we went to see the film.

Kingsley plays a Sikh, Darwan Singh Tur, who is a driving instructor by day and a taxi driver by night. One evening he is hailed down by a man who is being pursued by an extremely angry wife, and both get in the cab. The man is Ted, who has just told his wife, Wendy, that he's leaving her for another woman. Ted doesn't stay in the cab that long and Singh Tur drives Wendy home. He later finds that she has left a package in the cab.

Wendy's daughter is working on a farm and, having informed her mother that this time Ted won't be coming back (he had strayed previously), asks her mum to visit her at the farm. But Wendy can't drive, cue Singh Tur returning the package and Wendy asking him to give her driving lessons.