A Tale of Two Movies

I suppose I have to start with... SPOILER ALERT.
I watched the movie Driving Lessons last night.  I ordered it  from Netflix a while back because it has Rupert Grint in it and I wanted to see if he could play any character other than Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter series.  Since this role required him to be a morose teenager with occasional outbursts of rebellion, there wasn't much new to see as far as his personal acting skills.

The main thing that caught my interest about this film was the striking resemblance to the film Harold and Maude, which came out in 1971.  It's the same idea of a free spirited old woman who inspite of her own flaws, shows a teenage boy how to find his way out of teenage angst into happiness while breaking away from an oppressive mother.
Driving Lessons is a more gentle variation on the theme.  The teenager is less Holden Caulfield-ish and there is no sexual attraction between the old woman and the boy like in Harold and Maude, more of a crazy grandmother relationship. I remember that the May/December relationship in Harold and Maude caused quite a stir, back in the day. Today, I don't think anyone would be shocked. After all, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher almost qualify, give or take a few years on either side.

I remember studying in one of my college literature classes that there are a limited number of universal themes and all literature is simply variation on these themes. I recall that there is man vs man, man vs self, man vs nature, man vs society.  I am probably forgetting a few but I think the list was rather short. These two movies would be in the man (boy) vs self (and mother) category. In this case, the variations are so similar that I am surprised that copyright lawyers did not feel their litigation sensors tingling.