Daddio Review | Slow Ride to Midtown

An unforced and psychologically intriguing single setting drama, Christy Hall’s debut feature, Daddio, looks at the potential healing power that can be found in the company of strangers. While Hall’s premise is dragged to a breaking point sheerly through the limitations of the chosen setting, stars Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn carry on with a well written, perceptive tête-à-tête that keeps things moving along and emotionally charged. Daddio is a simple movie about big feelings that are sometimes hard to put into words, with Hall giving her stars ample time to parse, over think, and analyze their unique conditions and points of view.

It’s the middle of the night, and a woman of indeterminate age (Johnson) has just landed at JFK airport following a flight from her hometown in Oklahoma. She hails a cab to take her back to her midtown apartment. Her driver, Clark (Penn), is a typical, everyman New Yorker, immediately clocking her as a local and not a tourist or business traveller. Clark starts engaging her in small talk, chatting about his crappy day in his wheeled office to his final fare of the night and waxing philosophical about the dying nature of his profession. The woman warms up to Clark, and around the time the trip hits a snag due to an accident on the highway, their conversation becomes a lot more personal and frank, delving into their personal relationships, and examining each other’s views on sex, guilt, and recognizing one’s self-worth.

Daddio has the same sort of armchair psychiatry that can be witnessed in the likes of the now defunct series Taxicab Confessions (a clear inspiration for writer-director Hall), but the give and take between this cabbie and his customer is well calibrated and reasoned. Some of the more precious sounding dialogue designed to make it seem like Daddio actually has a plot can be forced and heavy handed, but more often than not, Hall’s film has an ease and grace designed to let these characters’ chips fall where they may. Daddio is every bit like watching two people who’ve been put through life’s wringer trying to wind down and vent at the end of a long day. It’s a therapeutic experience both are relishing in.

In typical New York fashion, the conversations between Penn and Johnson can get a bit graphic and crass, causing the characters to bristle at the things coming out of their mouths, but Daddio isn’t the type of film that asks the viewer to agree with everything being said. Their opinions, situations, and takes on life are immaterial, and neither one of them is a perfect human being. Clark is an old school thinking and talking man’s man, struggling to accept his own obsolescence, and the woman in the backseat is a hardened professional in her field (computer programming) suffering a crisis of conscience, illustrated through her constant texting with a horny, needy lover that’s begging for sexual release. Daddio isn’t as much about each character’s revealing nature, but rather in how they react to the other person’s situation without judgment.

Hall’s material is extremely dependent on the strength of her leads, and Johnson’s unassuming looks and intellectual toughness plays well next to Penn’s craggy visage and working man swagger. Looking as weathered as the bumper on his cab, Penn effortlessly inhabits the body of someone who has become a student of human nature over his many years behind the wheel; someone who has seen a lot, but who never claims to have seen or heard it all before. For her part, Johnson has to do something a lot more detailed, offering up long pauses where one wonders if this woman is trying to think up a clever lie to get out of being honest with a stranger (and herself) or if she’s weighing the benefits of venting to this guy she doesn’t know and will likely never see again. Even when her character is texting with their lover – a trope that isn’t and will never be inherently cinematic to watch – Johnson’s expression conveys an entire world of mixed emotions, and Penn’s subtle glances into the backseat showcase genuine interest, curiosity, and concern.

Given the choice of setting and stripped down nature of her character study, Hall doesn’t have much of a chance to imbue Daddio with many details that can’t be conveyed through dialogue and body language, which sometimes makes the film seem even longer than it actually is. Outside of headlights, streetlights, the reflective tape of highway signs, and a melange of vehicle and construction noises, Daddio doesn’t have much in the way of visual or aural storytelling. (Although, it should be noted that the clean nature of Clark’s cab is a nice, subtle character touch that’s well worth noticing.) Daddio is about the lost, dying art of cathartic conversation, and its ability to forge connections to people we never expect to interact with on such an intimate level. Sometimes these things just tend to happen, and often without realizing it, we’ve taken a dive headlong into conversations many think twice about having with friends, family, and therapists. Hall’s film is simple and indebted to many similarly influential works of fiction and nonfiction that came before it, but Daddio feels every bit like taking stock of one’s life for a few moments at the end of a long day.

Daddio opens in select Canadian cities starting on Friday, June 28, 2024.