The movie Daddio is about two people driving around and talking. More specifically, a young woman (Dakota Johnson) arrives at the airport and gets into the back seat of a yellow taxi. The cab driver (Sean Penn) heads towards Manhattan, and they talk. That’s pretty much it.
The cabbie, Clark, or whoever he wanted to be, is a fairly astute judge of people. As he generates conversation with his last fare of the night, she’s willing to put away her cell phone for a few moments in response. They discuss the nature of romantic relationships, sometimes as a competition.
The critics like it, 77% positive, and the audience response is 86% thumbs up. Sara Michelle Fetters wrote: “The pair’s conversation only grows in unexpected specificity and fiery intensity from there… While I never fully bought that the two characters would engage as intimately as they do, their conversation still kept me glued to my seat…” While I agree with the latter half, I found strangers in a taxi talking entirely credible. When I used to take the train to Charlotte, NC, and elsewhere regularly, I was initially shocked at what total strangers would share with me.
The cabbie’s motives
Fetters also notes: “Is Clark attracted to her? Does he look at the woman as a daughter? Is he bored and just happy to have someone in his cab willing to chat with him? As for her, does she need this conversation right now? Does Clark spark something inside her that makes her willing to open up to a complete stranger about so many ins and outs happening in her life at the moment?”
But Rex Reed’s negative assessment is NOT wrong. “Every woman I’ve ever known would start looking for an escape from a cabbie who turns as embarrassingly intimate as this one does.”
This is Christy Hall’s directorial debut and also her first script for the cinema. Dakota Johnson was an executive producer.
In some ways, I wondered how this would play out as a two-person play. It would require something to display what she is surreptitiously texting.
I think it is a good but not great film. My wife and I saw it on a Tuesday night at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany.