Lucas Jaye and Brian Dennehy in Driveways (Ki Jin Kim/Tribeeca Film Festival)

Audiences who are content to sit back and watch a gentle slice-of-life tale unfold without high drama or big surprises will be rewarded with subtle pleasures in Andrew Ahn’s Driveways.

Hong Chau (Downsizing) stars as Kathy, a single mother who drives across country with her eight-year-old son, Cody (Lucas Jaye, Fuller House), to take care of business after her sister passes away. In a small upstate New York town, neighbors are curious about the newcomers, and soon the sister’s elderly neighbor, Del (Brian Dennehy), interacts with the pair, at first with skepticism, before a deepening friendship develops.

The relationship between Cody and Del is especially poignant, as the fatherless child sees a patriarchal figure in Del. Over the course of a summer, the three lower their guards through the quotidian experiences they share. Natural, moving performances are the hallmark of this low-key, heartfelft film, with Jaye a surprising standout.

Kathy, an aspiring nurse, continues to work away from home as a medical transcriber as she undertakes the enormous task of readying her sister’s house for sale. The sister was a hoarder, and her house is full of overstuffed rooms, unsavory smells, and at least one dead pet. As a pack rat, she found comfort in her objects, and Kathy unearths buried secrets through these belongings.

Kathy is warm and loving, but is she an overprotective mother? Her focus is on the well-being of her child, who she sees as fragile. She mistrusts anyone who approaches Cody when he is alone, including his first encounter with Del, who talks to him from his station on his porch. Her worry continues when Cody is left without playmates at his roller-skating birthday party, but the boy is more than happy to switch gears and celebrate with Del and the other senior citizens at a VFW bingo game.

Cody is generally unselfconscious, engrossed in video games or playing with Bugle snacks on his fingertips. Del’s wife passed away, and he now lives alone, with plenty of time to ponder his regrets in life. Cody serves as his sounding board, and the boy’s sensitivity allows him to absorb the lessons, despite decades of difference in their ages.

Linda (Christine Ebersole), a busy-body neighbor, is unwelcome to the group as are her pugnacious grandsons who attempt to bring Cody into their aggressive wrestling game. Instead, Cody is drawn to other neighborhood children who introduce him to manga graphic novels.

Driveways is director Ahn’s sophomore feature. His first, Spa Night, relayed the story of a closeted young man realizing his sexuality. It premiered at Sundance 2016 to solid reviews. In Driveways, Cody’s sexuality is not pinned down, but he has the earmarks of someone who doesn’t fit in. The roles of Kathy and Cody were not written as Asian, but Korean-American Ahn cast them as such, adding another dimension to their personas, as outsiders in a largely white town.

The delicately crafted film includes languid music by composer Jay Wadley that evokes the slow pace of hot summer months, the straightforward and atmospheric cinematography by Ki Jin Kim, and a bittersweet yet optimistic screenplay by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen, primarily known for theater work with The Debate Society.