“Daddio” with Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson
A taxi ride as a journey of self-discovery
Innocence personified, femme fatale… or both? Dakota Johnson in “Daddio – One Night in New York”.
© Leonine
Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson in a taxi: There is nothing more to see in the chamber play “Daddio” – and there doesn’t have to be.
When a film like Christy Hall’s directorial debut “Daddio – A Night in New York” (cinema release: June 27) focuses on two characters who, what’s more, only talk to each other, there is no narrative network, no narrative double bottom. The option of concealing any length with banal but effect-seeking sequences is not available.
Instead, it is the acting and the chemistry between the protagonists that determine whether you hang on their every word for 100 minutes – or whether you keep feeling the latent urge to check the news on your phone. A problem that is also evident in the film Dakota Johnson (34) faces Sean Penn (63) during her taxi ride.
Lonely together? That’s what it’s about
Without saying a word, a young woman (Johnson) gets into a taxi. The driver (Penn) is also given the destination address on a piece of paper before the car rolls away and the passenger looks dreamily out the window at the nighttime skyline of the Big Apple. But what begins as a typically distant taxi ride, a mundane transaction between service provider and customer, soon becomes a mutual striptease of the soul.
At first hesitantly, but as the journey progresses she becomes more and more open-hearted as she answers questions from the hardened driver, who fluctuates between charming, chauvinistic and a little out of touch with the times. His understanding of human nature after decades behind the wheel is razor-sharp, but as the journey progresses his direct manner increasingly turns out to be a protective reflex. After all, dealing with other people’s problems is the best way to suppress your own.
Two worlds collide
The taxi driver begins to analyse his passenger early on. What bothers her most about his amateur psychology is the fact that he hits the nail on the head. Yes, she is in a relationship with a married man. That’s right, she has confessed her love to the affair. And again, that’s right: His reaction to the “bad L-word” is the reason that she keeps secretly looking at her mobile phone during the journey and longingly waits for a “me too” between the countless sex talk messages.
Towards the middle of the film – the two are stuck in a traffic jam and can, for once, talk face to face – one of Penn’s monologues about the typical relationship between a man and a woman apparently degenerates into a pure “mansplaining” tirade. Especially since the film does not grant Johnson’s character the satisfaction of a verbal retaliation in this scene, but lets her sit passively in the back seat.
The retaliation mentioned above comes gradually over the course of the film. When it becomes clear what lies behind the statements: the bitter worldview of a man who regrets pretty much every decision he has made in life, can’t even stand his own name and secretly hopes to somehow turn things around – but basically knows that it is already too late for that.
It is not surprising that the expressive Penn is able to carry a film solely with his facial expressions. But Johnson also delivers a strong performance in the mixture of chamber play and character study, which leaves at least as many questions unanswered as it answers. This has fluctuated for her over the course of her career; not unjustly criticized performances in “Fifty Shades of Grey” or most recently “Madame Web” are contrasted by convincing acting in the “Suspiria” remake and “The Peanut Butter Falcon”. Or to put it another way: Johnson is better suited to independent films than blockbusters – and she has now proven this once again with “Daddio”.
Who is the film suitable for?
Anyone who buys a ticket for “Daddio” and is surprised by the leisurely narrative despite the premise has only themselves to blame for the boredom they may have felt in the cinema. The film is in the best tradition of comparable works and, while it doesn’t do much that’s new, it does most things right.
Anyone who loves the “Before” series with Ethan Hawke (53) and Julie Delpy (54), who questioned their worldview after the outstanding film adaptation of the novel “The Sunset Limited” with Samuel L. Jackson (75) and Tommy Lee Jones (77), or who already enjoyed a car ride into an uncertain future with Tom Hardy (46) in “No Turning Back” will also get a lot out of “Daddio”. In the latter example, Hardy even managed to give you goosebumps all by himself in the car.
Conclusion:
What begins in “Daddio” as a trip to an insignificant address in New York City ends with a journey to oneself. Both characters, their decisions and world views, are controversial – that is precisely what makes them so appealing. And in the end, both have gained an important insight: he has to admit that he is much more unhappy than he tries so vehemently to convince everyone else, and especially himself. And she realizes that she is stronger than she ever thought possible. Not despite, but precisely because of her willingness to say the “bad L-word.”