I cannot recall a movie of a full 100-minutes dialogue between two people. Maybe I have seen one or two and forgotten, but certainly none like this one, taking place entirely (well, 99% if you really want to split hair) inside a cab. The dialogue, as you can well surmise, is between the driver and his fare. So refreshingly delightful, if you ask me, but obviously not for everybody. Needless to say, much rest with the quality of the writing. Considering the setting (with no disrespect to the cab driving profession) the conversation is unlikely to be one that reminds you of Shakespeare or Shaw. This one is not exactly Williams, Millar or Wilder either. Still, it is captivating in its own way. Let me back up a little.
At JFK Airport, sophisticated young woman (between 24 and 34 as the script goes, played by Dakota Johnson), just flown back after 3 weeks of family visit in Oklahoma, hops on a flat-rate cab to Manhattan, normally a 45 minute ride. Traffic jam midway through doubles the time. The grass-root looking middle aged drive (Sean Penn) initiated a conversation, a perfectly normal thing. But the protagonists have a little more fire in them than average. As it is quite unlikely they will see each other again after this ride, they throw away inhibitions. After some meandering, the conversation goes into personal territories.
It starts, expectedly routinely, with his complaints about apps taking over the human touch (and tips in hard cash too, needless to say). He is also a man, even at his age, full of curiosity. Upon learning that she is a computer programmer (rather than a fashion model or some such thing), he seems genuinely interested to learn about "zeros and ones". She proceeds to enlighten him. Then she takes over control (at least temporarily) and starts asking questions. A pattern follows, not unlike in a tennis match, where they alternatively serve and hold the service game. The questions become more provocative, and answers more philosophical and personal, both. It will be a crime to reveal more as that would take away much of the pleasure from watching the movie. The only plotline (as if there is one) detail I need to add is that she is, a lot of times, messaging back and forth with a man who is waiting for her to come home. While the context is explicitly sexual, it does not deter her from always coming back to pick up again and continue the conversation with the cab driver.
Johnson and Penn have excellent chemistry, and this is not 100 minutes of non-stop dialogue. There is plenty of eloquent nuances. As well, they tell a lot with their facial expressions, often presented in delicately shot close-ups. You can clearly hear their eyes talk. You can call it exaggeration but I'd say there is never a dull moment, due partly to beautiful cinematography. Yes, you don't see awe-inspiring scenes of desert sunrise as in Lawrence of Arabia. But the mesmerizing shots of hazy night Manhattan contributes much in enhancing the mood.
A rare gem, this movie "Daddio", the risk of boring some in the audience to death notwithstanding. While on that, one more disclosure: the title does not allude to the relationship between the protagonists. To a potential spoiler charge, I would plead not guilty.
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