Directed By Christy Hall

Starring – Dakota Johnson, Sean Penn, Marcos A. Gonzalez

The Plot – A woman (Johnson) taking a cab ride from JFK engages in a conversation with the roughneck taxi driver (Penn) about the important relationships in their lives.

Rated R for adult language throughout, sexual material and brief graphic nudity.

DADDIO | Official Trailer (2024) (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

While single stage settings in an automobile capacity are often difficult to maintain momentum and urgency throughout the duration of a feature length narrative, ‘Daddio’ is a surprisingly poignant and thought-provoking experience from first time filmmaker, Christy Hall, who underlines the importance of interaction in the depths of life-altering perception in those who we least expect. Considering this is essentially a conversation between two strangers, it’s remarkable what Hall is able to do to maintain attention in her audience, with everything from the versatility of her presentation, to the psychology of her dialogue as a screenwriter playing a vital hand to the film’s integrity, ultimately leading to a rewarding film where I feel like I got as much outlook and insight on life as those involved in the fictional examination. Thematically, the dialogue harvests a natural banter that doesn’t feel polished or enhanced for cinematic appeal, instead relying on the charms and cadences of its two leads to brandish an unshakeable chemistry that goes a long way in the effortless appeal that each of them garner towards opening up to one another, all the while thematically tapping in to everything from sexual exploration among genders, to technological dependency, which keeps the topics fresh in the responsibility of a 96 minute engagement. In addition, the aforementioned balance of a stylistically alluring presentation refuses to phone it in with a two camera deviation that we’ve seen in just about every movie featuring an automobile sequence, instead opting for psychologically perplexed framing and evolving proximities in placement that take this claustrophobic car towards feeling like an entire universe between the two people confined to it. In addition, the production works overtime towards garnering a naturalistic lighting element of sorts that seamlessly reflect the lighting of passing streetlights and neighboring automobiles across the facial registries of Johnson and Penn, and while it’s obviously manipulated to attain this valuable impact, it also doesn’t feel like a crew is constantly standing outside of the car with a gigantically unnatural lighting scheme, resulting in an immersive value to the depiction that never withers in the extent of its many miles contextually or thematically that the script takes us. In addition to a stylishly sleek presentation, the performances from this two person ensemble shoulder the burden of responsibility with two of the best performances from either of them in a very long time. For Johnson, her name in the game has only amounted to the last ten years or so, but here as a character only referred to sporadically as Girlie, she burdens the weight of the world on facial registries that work overtime in maintaining her character’s many devastating secrets. While part of the fun of the film is watching Penn’s Clark casually uncover each of them, the way these revelations hit Johnson like a ton of bricks wash over her in ways that effortlessly attain vulnerability and tenderness to the outline of the character, giving Johnson ample opportunity to play a poker face that even with Dakota’s stacked charisma in range, can’t obscure the eyes to the soul that she uses to expel everything she’s feeling. For Penn, it’s watching a masterful veteran of the screen seamlessly lose himself in the depths of a character, not only with a consistency and cadence to a New York accent, but also in the honesty of his sociological observations, which feel truthful without being rude or disrespectful to the elements of Girlie’s life that ultimately and unfortunately rule her. While these two could easily pass for love interests in the boundaries of some sensational chemistry, I’m happy that the script ultimately utilizes them as the missing x-factor’s to the lives of the other person, where outsider perception goes a long way in the clarity that we continuously strive for, but rarely ever attain on our own blinded realities. As previously stated, the film is obviously conversation-oriented, with only brief breaks between respective sections to give breath to overheating emotions, but even in the repetitious flow of its general outline, I simply couldn’t get enough of the banter between these two polar opposites of characters, where the wisdom of the elder often clashes with the naivety of the young adult, to produce something simultaneously stimulating and entertaining to what naturally materializes, saving the biggest of these bombshells for a third act climax that I didn’t see coming as obviously as some of the film’s earlier reveals.

NEGATIVES

Despite cunning conversations and gravitationally pulling performances from both Johnson and Penn, the film does overstay its welcome a bit, with a 96 minute objective that becomes tedious around a second act that quite literally stops in place to delay this otherwise 30 minute car ride. I can easily overlook an interstate traffic jam where the car doesn’t move three feet over the course of forty on-screen minutes, but what I cannot overlook is this meandering on certain topics that add little to the bigger picture of these two characters that the film is continuously drawing, with pacing that screeches to a grinding halt with still a good forty-five minutes left in the engagement. With sharper editing, these topics could still maintain a relevance in their casual spontaneity, but the material allowance of about 80 gripping minutes doesn’t have enough gas to reach the extent of its destination, and as a result doesn’t always maintain the urgency in this ride between strangers that could end at any given moment. Likewise, the film is obviously R-rated, but the material, primarily the dialogue, takes advantage of it in ways that feel desperate to conjure a shock value of sorts that is really unnecessary to the engagement, with a childish element of sorts in language and vulgarities that truly made me squirm uncomfortably in my seat. Without spoiling much, Girlie has a mystery suitor continuously texting her throughout the ride’s duration, and as a result, Clark’s investigation into the mentality of his cab companion leads to uncovering fetishes from her that originate from her lack of a father figure in her life as a child, and in drawing the comparison illustrated by an older cab driver, comes across as creepy, especially in the camera work depicting him slimily smiling during such insights. I can understand that Hall’s intention was to outline the evolving trust and comfortability between two people who feel like they’ve known each other for a lifetime, yet in reality just met, but it will undoubtedly serve as the litmus test for certain audiences who appreciate more of the protective side of Clark’s taking to Girlie, and are now forced to endure horny talk from a man more than twice her age. This obviously isn’t the only issue, as it all stems from this mystery suitor sending her graphic texts, with one such instance involving a dick pick, and it just overrides the charms and any semblance of cadence that this film credibly was working with, all in the name of a forceful dependency on adult emphasized material that the film quite honestly didn’t need as extensively as it garnered.

OVERALL
‘Daddio’ is a thought-provoking and poignant directorial debut for Christy Hall, whose psychological tug-of-war in the power dynamic between polar opposites enclosed away from the outside world unearths a thirst for human connection in the strangest of places. The allure of the engrossing dialogue and magnetizing performances from Johnson and Penn help to keep this vehicle continuously running throughout overtly adult material that nearly eviscerates subtleties, and even if it doesn’t have enough gas to fully reach the extent of its ambitious 96-minute destination, this two-hander trek still keeps the meter running with shocking revelations and personal healing, which are needed at a time now more than ever.

My Grade: 7/10 or B-