Daddio (2023)

Daddio (2023)

After landing, a young woman (Dakota Johnson) boards a taxi at JFK airport on her way to her Manhattan flat. The driver (Sean Penn) starts the car on the way to Manhattan, and during the journey the two of them engage in a surprisingly honest conversation on a wide range of sometimes very personal subjects, making the night’s journey remarkably singular. And as a human relationship develops between the passenger (called Girlie in the credits, as she won’t reveal her first name) and the driver Clark, they both find common ground that will help them understand each other’s points of view and discover themselves.

This is exactly the kind of writing I do! Two strangers who meet and experience a defining moment that they will probably remember for the rest of their lives.

Originally, Daisy Ridley was to play the lead role. But she was eventually replaced. Filming will take place in December 2022 in New York and Hoboken, New Jersey.

In Italian, the film was presented under the name “Una notte a New York”, which probably means “A night in New York”.

Christy Hall doesn’t seem to have done anything else apart from this film. I don’t know if she’s a young director, but there’s a good chance. She also wrote the film, while Dakota is also one of the producers.
There are several ways of talking about this film and reviewing it.
You can simply say that it’s rubbish and move on without wasting any time. Of course, if you don’t like a simple, in camera film, with just two characters chatting in a car, this film will be of zero interest. But it can also be debated for hours on end, because in this kind of feature film you can’t really miss any of the dialogue, otherwise you might get left behind or miss one of the most important sentences.

Those who may also want to skip it: those who only like horror films, violent films with sex scenes. This isn’t a comedy, it’s considered a drama showing everyday problems that people certainly have. Yes, not necessarily the worries of the average person. A young woman who falls in love with a much older man, who could be her father, and who is probably being taken for a ride, is it banal? Is it interesting? At any rate, it’s part of the young woman’s confidence in her taxi driver.

If you don’t take my advice, you’re going to say that this is the most boring film of 2024, that it can’t have cost much money, that it’s pointless and based on dialogue!

So Yes & No as far as I’m concerned.
I’ve got nothing against two-person films set in one place. But if all the dialogue isn’t ultra-captivating, the story quickly loses interest. If you’re not touched by the characters, if you find them ridiculous or interesting, you’re bound to have a bad time. And for my part, I have mixed feelings about it. I was taken in, but despite the good philosophical and psychological aspects, I didn’t find Dakota Johnson in a thrilling role, once again. Admittedly, this actress has charm and talent. She plays very well, is very natural… but to say she’s a revelation? No, far from it, as far as I’m concerned. This is entirely personal: usually, I think black hair looks great on blonde actresses, but this is the opposite. I thought the blonde hair suited the daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson (who both starred in Born Yesterday in 1993).

It goes without saying that I much preferred a film like Collateral (2004) to this one. But there’s probably no comparison, given that the latter is an excellent Thriller. But, obviously, I’ve thought about this film several times.

You might think that Sean Penn & Dakota Johnson have gone soft, that here they are playing one of the least interesting roles of their careers. Once again, it’s all a question of point of view. In this case, you could also say that the two of them have nothing left to prove and that, as a result, making such simple interpretations also shows part of their talent, if not their modesty. The bad tongues will always say that it’s because they haven’t found anything else or that nobody wants them. Especially if you get the impression that Dakota is just the Fifty Shades trilogy and that Penn was long gone anyway.
I don’t know whether fans of these actors will forgive them everything and see it as nothing but genius. Those who loved Fifty Shades in particular are likely to be disappointed by this film, and those expecting to see Sean in a role like Mystic River (2003) or I Am Sam (2001) will also be saddened. This great actor seems to have lost his flame.

This is undoubtedly a politico-social film insofar as the social classes merge, fraternise in their common anthropology and, by this very fact, propose a cordial understanding between the various social factions.

Daddio, otherwise known as Daddy O a slang term from the mid-1950s and 1960s, to address an elderly person. In the film, a reference to Girlie’s quasi-confession. But in this almost surreal game of intimate verbal exchanges, the pure conviction that humans, at least for the most part, like to talk about their lives, a way like any other of not feeling alone in the world.

A nice moment, but by no means essential. It doesn’t hold a candle to the essential films.