Big Driver (Mikael Salomon, 2014, USA/Canada)

Big Driver is the first Lifetime movie in the Stephen King canon. Adapted from the novella in King's 2010 collection Full Dark, No Stars, Big Driver stars Maria Bello as Tess, a cozy mystery writer. At a reading event, the librarian Ramona Norville gives Tess directions to avoid I-84. This leads to the rape and near murder of Tess. As Tess grapples with this trauma, she decides to take revenge on the perpetrator. She begins to realize that the perpetrator was not alone and that some others may have been involved in leading her to danger.

One of three film adaptations of works from the four-novella collection, Big Driver is remarkably faithful to King's novella. King's novella is essentially his take on the rape-revenge tale, made popular by films such as The Last House on the Left. While the adaptation by director Mikael Salomon is obviously limited by adaptations to the TV format, it does not shy away from some of the more gruesome and disturbing scenes in King's novella. Much of the novella is told from Tess's inner monologue, and one of the limitations of the film is our ability to understand Tess's mindset. The script tries to remedy this by having her navigation system in her car as one source of reasoning (this is also in the novella), as well as appearances by the knitting society from her cozy mystery series.

While Big Driver is limited in terms of its production, it is about what you would expect from a Lifetime adaptation of a Stephen King revenge tale. In some aspects, the film is much better than we here anticipated. By the standards of Lifetime movies, this is certainly one of the better ones. No doubt the direction of Mikael Salomon had some influence on this. Nevertheless, Big Driver is not particularly rewatchable.

6/10