Writer and humorist Randy Cohen has launched legal action against the makers of Learning to Drive, the Patricia Clarkson comedy based on a book by his ex-wife Katha Pollitt.
According to the New York Daily News, Cohen’s complaint is that the abusive, unfaithful character who at the start of the film is married to the protagonist, played by Clarkson, is in fact based on a former boyfriend of Pollitt’s, who she met after their marriage had ended.
Best known as the former writer of The Ethicist column in the New York Times, Cohen filed documents that claim: “The statements in the trailer and the film, which portray a character based on [Cohen] as a mendacious, profligate philanderer, are false and defamatory per se” because people who know Cohen “are likely to identify and recognise him as the character portrayed in the film”.
Learning to Drive was inspired by Pollitt’s experience taking driving lessons in the aftermath of a breakup with her long-term partner, which she chronicled in a 2002 New Yorker article. Pollitt and Cohen were married in 1987, but later divorced.
