TEXAS, USA — You’d be forgiven if you waltzed into Christy Hall’s “Daddio” blind and, on the basis of its opening few minutes alone, thought you were watching the start of a thriller. Some sanguine musical melodies notwithstanding – hell, maybe it’s a misdirect? – Hall’s feature debut bears hallmarks of a movie where someone will eventually find themselves in need of a saving: a rainy nighttime setting, the isolated confines of a taxi cab pointedly juxtaposed by the busyness of New York, a young passenger’s watchful eye tracking her driver’s own as he starts asking questions. Where is she flying in from? Who keeps messaging her nonstop? What is this person to her?
That “Daddio” isn’t a thriller in the conventional sense doesn’t necessarily make any of the above untrue. Its characters are keenly observational; its taxi setting makes for an alluring arena; and there may be a person, perhaps two, who will be saved when it’s all said and done. But for a drama that fills out its contours as a study in gender dynamics by measuring presumptions against themselves, it’s key that Dakota Johnson’s blonde-haired passenger credited only as “Girlie” is the one who decides when to break down the barrier that stands before her and Sean Penn’s Clark, even as he’s the one putting cracks in it, egged on by his own initial curiosity about a rare passenger who’s avoiding her phone instead of burying herself in it.
The answer as to why won’t ultimately be as satisfying to discover as watching how the movie's central performances wade into its depths. Johnson and Penn are more or less the only faces we see, and it's compelling watching them test the waters of their characters' limited connection, one that will end up being transactionary in ways neither expects as they open up about personal histories and shortcomings en route to well-timed revelation. Far from the first or last movie to be made about the spontaneity and surprise of human connection, “Daddio” will resonate harder with audience members who prefer emotional truths rendered out in the open rather than through subtler channels. Its melodrama, grounded as it is, isn’t able to deliver the same jolt of catharsis for its audience that appears to have materialized between Girlie and Clark once they arrive at their Midtown destination.
Leave it to Johnson and Penn, then, to deliver performances that get ample mileage out of the stodgy screenplay’s fuel, and to their playwright-turned-filmmaker for making the most out of an artistic transition by convincingly turning Clark’s cramped cab into a universe of its characters’ own making. For all the tell-tale signs that Hall cut her teeth on New York stage plays – the amusing ping-pong of conversation, the deployment of a line that instantly shifts the stakes – it’s the visual geography she conjures up with Oscar-nominated cinematographer Phedon Papamichael that allows Girlie and Clark to fill in the silence between words. Somehow, in some captivating way, they’re able to instill cinematic nuance into what feels like the same close-up shots we see a dozen times; the glance of eyes, the glow of an iPhone, the anxious fumbling of hands. The expectation is that any 100-minute movie confined mostly to the inside of a car will be limited in what it can accomplish visually, but “Daddio's” unexpected level of dynamism tunes us that much more into its central questions: What are these two people to each other? What do they think they can be?
And, most urgently, what role does the movie’s ambient third character play—the faceless man who sends Girlie lewd messages, hasty apologies and the occasional attempt at sincerity? The outside world eventually starts to encroach on these two strangers’ momentary bond in the form of car honks, city lights, and the influence of someone who may help Girlie recognize where she is in life and Clark’s job in getting her to the next destination. It turns out they’re on the homestretch when she first hops into his cab; “Daddio” slowly reveals itself not to be a self-contained story, but rather the epilogue of a larger one.
“Daddio’s” potential comes from Johnson and Penn embracing this postscript approach of the story—from nudging us to contemplate the details that make it easy to hang sympathy or suspicion on Penn’s hook of a smile, that draw us into the way Girlie’s desire to open up comes with an equal dose of guardedness. The movie may not entirely fulfill that potential once the final fare is collected, but for a structural conceit so familiar it’s practically daring us to stay invested, Hall’s debut makes just enough of staying in its lane.
"Daddio" is rated R for language throughout, sexual material and brief graphic nudity. It's now in theaters. Runtime: 1 hour, 40 minutes.
Starring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn
Directed and written by Christy Hall
2024
