DADDIO– 4 STARS

LESSON #1: THE VARYING DEPTHS OF UNEXPECTED CONVERSATIONS– There’s a large gap between forgettable and memorable when it comes to random conversations occurring between strangers. Somedays, it’s simply cordial and disposable pleasantries shared with someone to pass the time waiting in a line, an elevator, or a seat on any given mode of mass transportation. Fight Club probably defined it best as the “single-serving friend.” On the other end of the spectrum, the topics evolve, individualities click, and opportunities present themselves for quality, and even life-changing, conversations. A fascinating one of those with full heft is happening in Daddio.

Stepping off a late-arriving flight from Oklahoma at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City is an unnamed woman played by Dakota Johnson (recently of Madame Web and Cha Cha Real Smooth). She has a single rolling bag of luggage and opts for taking a traditional taxi cab instead of using a vehicle from a ride-share app. The lucky and unassuming cab in the queue receiving her flat-rate airport fare is driven by Clark, played by Mystric River Academy Award winner Sean Penn. The catalysts for their coming conversation are mood and time. 

The latter is easier to dissect. The woman’s requested destination is the unspecific crossroads of West 44th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues in Midtown Manhattan. The drive from JFK to Midtown is approximately a 17-mile trip that can take anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour-and-a-half depending on traffic and the time of day. For Daddio, longer minutes meaning statements like “that’s a long story” or “a story for a different day” can get cheeky replies like “we’ve got plenty of time” or “we’ve got all the time in the world.” Writer-director Christy Hall’s script doesn’t drop those common cliche lines, but the two central characters fall into those roles and get each other’s drifts.

LESSON #2: MATCHING MOODS IN UNEXPECTED CONVERSATIONS– Therein lies the real key to unlocking a memorable conversation higher than chit-chat: Mood. Two people– not just one– have to want to talk. One person can have all the wisdom in the world or be a fountain of entertainment, but the other will never know it if genuine curiosity and investment aren’t reciprocated. Daddio doesn’t lose a second introducing a pair of differing dispositions prime for participation and initiative.

Clark opens the ride in Daddio to let his customer know she’s the winner as his last fare of the night. Hints of a long day’s grind come out as Clark speaks with an educated edge laced with a New Yorker’s flippant and poetic comfort with profanity. He shares a small rant about the lack of tips coming from credit card customers that escalates into a history lesson on destructive wars fought over priceless currencies that used to be salt, tea, coffee, and gold before they were the plastic and digital varieties of today, prognosticating a future societal collapse if the system fails.

Johnson’s woman doesn’t offer her name, but is soon labeled “Girlie” by Clark. She takes that first diatribe in with an engrossed smile, a comeback lesson of her own about how her career of computer programming works connected to said system, and a joke that’s she’s good for a sizable tip at the end of the ride tonight because her suitcase in the trunk is filled with salt, proving she can be clever right back. From her looks, gait, and those retorts, Clark reads Girlie as woman who can “handle” herself, something she takes and appreciates a proud compliment. 

With that, Daddio settles into the candor and smoke-blowing repartee of its limited encounter. The reason the myth exists that cab drivers (and now the regular Uber and Lyft drivers of the world) have seen and heard it all as traveling pontiffs receiving the spoken worries and cares of the world is because they truly have. If the movie wanted to, Daddio could pretend to be a feature-length and carefully scripted episode of the old Emmy-winning HBO hidden camera documentary show Taxicab Confessions that ran from 1995 to 2006. That would cherry pick being spicy for spicy’s sake with the respectively smoldering essences of Johnson and Penn.

Daddio avoids the scintillating in favor of divulging and treating painful mindsets. Clark’s conversation starters take Girlie away from an insistent male texter labeled as “L” in her phone contacts. He’s up late sexting and pushing hard for sexual fulfillment. What he is and who is to her is something Clark reads and extracts out of her quickly and clearly. When they are stopped waiting for police and emergency vehicles to clear a bad car accident ahead of them, Clark can turn around, slide the Plexiglass divider open between them, look her in the eye, and really talk. When he does so, the whole conversation of the cab ride shifts to another emotional plane.

LESSON #3: CONFIDING IN A STRANGER– Whether Girlie wants to hear it or not, Clark comes in bluntly strong with his aged and male viewpoint into the whole gamut of behavior going on. His dissection of the situation jarringly gives the woman pause, while validating her toughness and promoting the happiness she deserves. The exposed mistakes being revealed echo many of his own and lead to a buffet of food for thought. Sure enough, as temporary and unalike as Clark is, here she is pushing away the “Why do you care?” cease-and-desist options to allow an unplanned convergence of personalities reassess her life.

For a cinematographer, Daddio carries the challenge of being a two-handed, single-setting film where creativity is required to emulate the accurate passage of time and avoid static framing in a sedan’s cramped quarters often manned by stunt driver Galway K. McCullough. Christy Hall, making her feature-film directorial debut, called upon the right expert in two-time Oscar nominee Phedon Papamichel (Nebraska, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Ford v. Ferrari). With scene-breaking inserts shot above, behind, or out the cab window, the DP guided viewers on a miniature travelogue of the well-worn asphalt trail passing through the hearts of Queens and Brooklyn before emerging out of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel into the looming heights of Manhattan. In the car itself, Papamichael rigged views and camera placements at a multitude of angles and distances, giving Oscar-nominated editor Lisa Zeno Churgin (The Cider House Rules) a plethora of images to stitch together with sure-handed fluidity.

Beyond the technical side, the true, powerful appeal of Daddio is the mano-y-mano acting showcase between Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn, and it does not disappoint. In their seated marks, so much of their performances are reliant on body language from the chest up. Facial expressions, hand placements, posture shifts, and even the cadence of breathing become careful and exacting. So much is set up by these naturally polished choices where Hall’s dominant script goes on to give the pairing the words to make those movements count.

Sean Penn’s cynical monologues during that aforementioned accident break in the second act– and many other smaller line readings before and after delivered through his sullen voice modulated with occasional spark– is a reminder of his titanic talent for captivating complete attention without the gaudy need to scream, intimidate, or glower to make his point. Jovial and frank are his speeds in Daddio and they suit his weathered screen presence. Across the seatback is a game Dakota Johnson. The former Fifty Shades series star breaks away from her willowy act with sharp execution and determination of their own. Their combined bracing honesty in their characters’ guises builds a cathartic lust-for-life out of an unflashy commuter journey.