Morgan Freeman will be known and loved for all time in Atlanta, where he has family and where he filmed the ensemble comedy “Last Vegas” a few years ago, as the steadfast Hoke in “Driving Miss Daisy.” Despite his many memorable roles over the years, the one as the wise and stoic driver in the movie co-starring Jessica Tandy is one that he holds especially dear.
Not that he fires it up on the DVD player over and over.
“I don’t watch it now,” he said of the 1989 movie, which earned a best picture Oscar and a best actor nomination for Freeman.
That’s not unusual, though. While viewers marvel at his skill in that film and others, Freeman looks at the big screen and shrugs: “I see me. That’s boring.”
Hardly. And his current movie, “5 Flights Up,” in theaters now, is anything but. In the movie based on the novel “Heroic Measures” by Jill Ciment, Morgan and Diane Keaton play Alex and Ruth, who consider selling their Brooklyn apartment after 40 years there. As they juggle escalating offers and strategize their next move in New York’s overheated real estate market, the city is gripped by panic when a Middle Eastern man abandons a truck on the Williamsburg Bridge.
Is he a terrorist? Will the truck explode? Will Alex and Ruth get $1 million for their apartment? Will their bid on the new place be accepted? Hysteria is the common thread propelling the twin narratives.
“It makes a point about human frailty, the way we react to recent history or long-term history,” he said. “It’s a very nice little human interest story.”
The movie tells a love story, not just between Ruth and Alex but between them and their community and the life they have built together.
“There are moments where you could see the tenderness between them,” Freeman said. “I liked when we got to those and did them. They’re real.”
