Daddio

I will—sporadically (which is all I ever do)—be filling in gaps of movies I wanted to see, or felt I should see in the past year, but for one reason or another passed on the opportunity (which was usually a short window of availability) for some reason.

All's Fare

or

It took a while, but she looked in the mirror
Then she glanced at the license for my name
A smile seemed to come to her slowly
It was a sad smile just the same

 

Daddio (Christy Hall, 2023) This is one where, when I described the movie ("The whole movie takes place during a cab-drive from JFK airport to mid-town Manhattan and it's  starring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn") got the response: "That sound like Hell."

 

Still...Johnson's choices (outside anything with the words "Shades" and "Web" in the title) have been at least interesting—and she produced this one—and that it managed to coax a disgruntled Penn out of self-imposed retirement says something about the material. Sometimes, the risk of going to Hell is worth it. Daddio, although it won't be to everybody's taste, was certainly worth the risk...especially as it's nested itself in Netflix for awhile. I've been ignoring Netflix—and it's time to sharpen my algorithm and cull the "My List."

Girl (Johnson) disembarks a flight from Oklahoma home to New York. Gets a random cab—the last fare of the night for Clark (Penn) who's been doing this for twenty years and "knows people." It's a flat fare from JFK so he's not running the meter and after some pleasantries and some business ("44th and 9th street—"Good ol' Mid-town"), they settle in for the trip. Music? No. She notices in its absence that he likes to drum his fingers on the steering wheel to some unheard tune. He notices she's not glued to her phone ("It's nice...") and gives her points for that—although her phone is parked on a texting conversation with her "boyfriend" and is never too out of reach. It's Clark's ("I'd prefer to be a 'Vinnie'") last call, so he's relaxed—and doesn't give a shit about his salty language—and in a mood to talk. 

After some pleasantries—"You can handle yourself""How could you possibly know that?""It ain't that difficult to read people.You gave me cross-streets, instead of some recited address from your phone n' I can tell you're not concerned with the meter 'cause JFK's a flat-rate") The lack of screen-time leads to a discussion of people in bubbles of technology and how the tipping situation is screwy (and detrimental to the server) now, less casual and random and he finds out she's a coder—isn't that a coincidence—and he asks if that's a tough line for a women to crack and endure (yeah, it always is) and then just (out of curiosity—"I can't be a know-it-all if I don't known nuttin'") says although he uses all this stuff, he doesn't "get" it. She does, so what's it all about. It's just 1's and 0's endlessly—either "on" or "off" or "true" of "false" in an atomization of language and command and instruction. Clark applies that to foundations—we start answering "yes/no" questions just to navigate daily life.

Given that context, Clark is always "on". With no music to fill the void, he's the music (with intermittent drum-solos), talking, espousing, bloviating—he's been around, he's done things, but not so much that he's using it for memory-fodder so much as context and learning material. He's good where he is, but he's as good a listener as he is a talker, and their back-and-forth turns into a teasing competition of who's got the advantage (with no winners or losers and no reward).

But, she keeps looking at her phone and that text-string. Her man-friend wants to hook up—she JUST got off a plane!—but, he keeps pushing it. He wants sex; she just wants to get home. And her expression changes so much that even looking through the rear-view mirror, Clark picks up on it. "What's his name?" Clark asks. "I'm not going to tell you THAT!" she says. "He's married" Clark deduces. She's silent, trying to not give anything away. "Yes...." she says, and the discussion turns to that. "You didn't say the "L" word to him, didja?"

Of course, she did. And then Clark is off, a long discussion about men, women, class, manipulation...and the crux of the matter, how people hide. How they put up a mask, how they put up a presentation ("The suit, the house, the car..."), and how, nowadays, "lookin' like a family man is more important than being one." Clark is more than a trip from the airport to Mid-town, he's a trip through time. He's been doing this for twenty years. The city has changed incrementally, but he hasn't, and people—they change a lot, but not really. And he's seen it all. And driven through it. He's not about giving advice, really, but, his observations make her think...and as it's a flat fare, it's less expensive than an hour of therapy.

And unlike her boy-friend, they're both open and frank (it's New York!) and not putting on airs—they're not going to see each other again, so there's no future consequences or repercussions, so they're frank with each other—not unguarded, but open. They're driving through a judgement-free zone, and traffic's not good. But the conversation has no pileups, and everybody knows how to merge.

It's two people in a cab for a whole movie; the cast has to be good for the movie to be work and Christy Hall, through the good luck of her writing a knock-out script (it started as a play and ended up on The Black List), got Dakota Johnson and her production company involved and Johnson's dream-casting for Clark was Penn. Good instincts all around. 

The two of them do more things with glances through rear-view mirrors than most actors could achieve nose-to-nose (Penn rehearsed with Johnson working with a rear-view mirror, supposedly). Body language is minimal, but when it happens it has an out-sized effect. Penn is mercurial, but relaxed with all the possibilities. And his eyes, man, they have their own-sub-text. Johnson has the breadth that she can look like she's aged twenty years with a passing thought and shifts conversationally fast and fresh. And the two riffing off each other is like watching the deftness of Tracy and Hepburn, they're that good together. And you totally buy that they're in a cab making their way down the Van Wyck Expressway.

Except...they aren't. Yeah, there was some location shooting and you see shots of a cab driving down streets just for some perspective now and again, so you can stretch your legs. But, the whole thing was shot in a studio surrounded by LED screens surrounding the cab-set...and it's amazing. Shot by Phedon Papamichael (who's been shooting for Clooney and Mangold and Alexander Payne), nobody's had so much fun playing with the kaleidoscope of traffic lights since Scorsese's Taxi Driver.

Yeah, so first-time director/first film-project. Shot in 16 days. Physically-limiting/imaginatively-challenging staging. It does sound like Hell. But, it works so great and the actors are so riveting, nothing else matters. Maybe you get your sensitivities tweaked a little bit, but the journey's worth it...and there are seat-belts for the squeamish. Ya won't need an air-bag.
 

And the cab-ride? What can I say, they made good time.