Abbas Kiarostami’s goal as a filmmaker was to make a film that took place entirely in a car. He got his wish with the wonderful TEN. Since then, we’ve been treated to other efforts confined to a single space that seem doomed by aren’t. Think Stephen Knight’s excellent drama, LOCKE, Ryan Reynold’s tour de force of suspense in BURIED, sor xxx xxx’s more fanciful PHONE BOOTH, which also worked as an action flick of sorts. To that roster we can now add DADDIO, a brilliant character study that, among other things, proves that when the hidden depths of a person’s psyche is expertly dissected, the results are as compelling as a car chase.
The two persons in question here are Girlie (Dakota Johnson) and Clark (Sean Penn). She has just flown into JFK from a visit to her half-sister in Oklahoma, and he’s the cabbie who picked up the late-night flat-rate fare. He is clumsily garrulous, she is self-assured and tired, but also in the mood for a conversation. Perhaps she is intrigued by his commanded of economic history, or his home-spun philosophy, essentially pessimistic, about economics or the potted plant he keeps by his side, tenderly watering it as they progress through the night to her home in Manhattan. Or maybe she just needs to be distracted from the text messages her boyfriend is sending that progress from sweet talk about missing her while she was gone, to urgent requests for anatomical shots to assist him in relieving his pent-up desire.
The conversation between cabbie and fare as they drive through the night also progresses from small talk about her job (he expected something other than a coder) to gradually revealing bit and pieces of what makes each of them tick. One would rather have another name, the other is a stickler for grammar. The conversation becomes more serious as their made-up game of true or false goes places neither of them expected, but that each finds comforting. The cab, driver in front, passenger in the backseat, becomes an ersatz confessional, but with each participant alternately playing both confessor and penitent. Never once does the premise seemed precious. Never once does the narrative feel forced as the level of emotional intimacy grows organically. The tension that is so arresting throughout comes from the uncertainty of where it is going; at what point will one of them shut-down into an angry or regretful or a sullen silence.
These are exquisite performances captured by a filmmaker who understands the power of a tapping, overly ornate fingernail, and of a quick glance in a rearview mirror that bespeaks a need for both forgiveness and non-judgement. The set is stationary, but the camera is active, reflecting the emotions each is experiencing, and the secrets revealed become more personal and more painful. It moves from face to face, finding a wealth of vantage points that annotate the mood, the delicate shifting of feeling, without ever calling attention to itself.
Filmmaker Christy Hall, in her debut feature film, tunes-in on the very human need to say things out loud to someone who will listen, really listen, not for a therapist’s fee or an ecclesiastical duty, but because of the genuine connection it creates that transcends friendship or love. The connection that renders you so vulnerable that it might be possible only with a stranger that will never be seen again. DADDIO is an emotional thriller that will put you through the wringer, but will keep you engrossed as the connection builds to something as monumental as it is fleeting.
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