Daddio

Grade: B

25 years ago, when Hurlyburly was in theaters, a blurb they used for their commercials and other advertisements said something like “it’s the kind of movie that makes you wish they gave out Oscars for ensemble acting.” It was a great one, headed up by Sean Penn. I thought about that quote, because Daddio, also starring Penn, made me wish they had an Oscar category for films with small casts – the dialogue-driven ones that either are based on a play, or could be one. Daddio is what’s called a two-hander. It’s pretty much just Penn and Dakota Johnson for an hour and 41 minutes.

We never find out Johnson’s character’s real name (she’s credited as “Girlie”). She is an undisclosed age, and has just traveled back home from Oklahoma – where she’s from – to New York City, where she’s lived for 9 years. Sean Penn plays Clark, her cab driver, who takes her from the JFK airport to her apartment. It’s one of those old-school yellow cabs, which Penn’s Clark compares to a Blockbuster Video. In the Uber times, the yellow cab’s days are numbered. The whole movie is the drive home. It’s all talking, and a vicious traffic jam gives them more time to do so.

Clark has been around the block, literally. He can tell right away that Girlie is local. She named an intersection for the destination, rather than an extremely specific address that sounds like she just read it off Google Maps. And when entering the cab, she immediately turned off the welcome video on the screen. He learns other things about her. She is the “other woman” in an affair she’s having with a married man who is old enough to be her father. She exchanges texts with him off-and-on throughout the film, as we see in both the usual formats: words on the screen, and the over-the-shoulder view of the phone. Accompanied, of course, by the usual iPhone sounds that most of us turned off several years and versions ago. I think I only ever hear it in movies now.

Clark, we learn, has been married, and has had an “other woman” of his own. Clark and Girlie challenge each other and keep a score based on who has the best one-liner in a battle of wits, or who can tell the most personal story. In the movies, I’m always quite affected by eyes beginning to water, and the four we see in Daddio are well-filmed and as expressive as any dialogue. Penn, known for his loud psychotic roles in his younger years, settles down, quiets down, and does lovely understated work as Clark. Nothing Dakota Johnson has done in the 50 Shades films or Madame Web will prepare you for how great she is here. Now that we know she can do this, let’s see her do it more. Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith’s daughter has come a long way, and I see more of her mother in her each time.

Most of the lines used in the trailer sound so trite when cherry-picked out of their narrative context (“At the end of the day, people are people”). Granted, that particular sentence doesn’t represent one of the prouder screenwriting moments, but the stories shared and blood shed can be quite effective and affecting. At the end of the day, these are two likable characters played by one established old pro, and a younger actor from a talented family who is finally getting to show us what she can do. Due to the low-volume talkiness, I’m not sure how often I need to see Daddio again, but as a one-off, it’s perfectly fine. These two souls got to be there for each other, and it was nice to meet them.

Grade: B