You’ve probably heard of a ‘bottle episode’—it’s likely your favourite episode of your favourite TV show. Topping my list are Girls’ “One Man’s Trash,” and The Sopranos‘ “Pine Barrens.” A ‘bottle movie’ follows the same concept, confining the action to a single location, much like a ship in a bottle. Prime examples include 12 Angry Men, Carnage, and The Breakfast Club. Then there’s the ‘two-hander,’ a film focused on just two main characters, a dynamic borrowed from stage plays. Noteworthy entries in this genre are the Before Trilogy, The Lighthouse, and My Dinner with Andre (which also happens to be a bottle movie). Micro sub-genre crash course over. So, deciding to debut with a two-hander-bottle-movie? That’s… brave! Enter Christy Hall, the writer/director behind Netflix’s I Am Not Okay With This, whose first foray into films brings us to Daddio.

Dakota Johnson stars as a nameless woman, donning a bleach-blonde lob and platform Doc Martens, who jumps into the back of a yellow cab at JFK airport. Playing the hardened taxi driver is Sean Penn, which sets up a slight icky feeling right off the bat. What starts as an ordinary ride from Queens to Manhattan swiftly turns into a mutual trauma dump that will forever alter their individual perspectives.

Since Daddio solely takes place within the four confined walls of a cab, monotony is almost guaranteed. The dialogue NEEDS to be at a ten, both in content and delivery. Johnson and Penn’s back and forth feels more like a never-ending rally at the who-is-more-damaged olympics. Even so, Johnson’s trademark sardonic charm bounces surprising well off Penn’s contemptuous aura. His weathered face gives off the assumption of a long and difficult life. That gives the driver character a complexity, which thankfully balances the disengaged and 2D woman in the back.

During the trip across boroughs, it takes Penn’s character (and the audience) virtually no time to unpack Johnson’s daddy issues, as if her outward appearance wasn’t a dead giveaway. The words on the page portray Johnson’s internal strife as something far more superficial than it is in reality. She’s struggling because she lacked a father figure growing up, but the script reduces this by exposing her torrid affair with an older man (groundbreaking!) and subsequently seeking fatherly advice from a cab driver twice her age. It’s a cheap trick us to make us think there is something profound at play, but it’s just a trite and reductive interpretation.

Apart from delving into the—i’ll repeat, inexplicably unnamed—woman’s personal relationships, the two leads attempt to have a nuanced conversation about gender roles in today’s isolated society. Unsurprisingly, the curmudgeon behind the wheel has a more archaic and bitter outlook than the strong-willed millennial in the back, but she seldomly rejects him or his mansplaining. Penn’s character goes on unprompted tangents about his salacious past, he asks his passenger if she’s a pig in the bedroom, and he shares his desire to smell used panties. The girl’s reaction? A sincere chuckle, seemingly charmed. Any Doc’s stomping, leather-jacket-wearing, dignity-having woman would have stopped, dropped, and rolled out of that cab immediately. 

After what seemed like the longest commute in history from JFK to Midtown, the two leads have an emotional and pivotal ending. The gruff, stuck-in-my-ways guy is now a bit softer. The vulnerable, lost girl might have a touch of direction now. Once again, groundbreaking stuff here. Nonetheless, there was still a genuine wonderment of where they will both end up. It almost would have worked better if the cab ride was just a preface to a more engaging and complex story. For a movie with absolutely no hiding room, Daddio is not a total failure. Hall was able to illicit some raw emotional moments from two-high calibre actors. She managed to keep the audience engaged in such a confined space, even if it wasn’t in a deep way. Most impressively, she actually made me believe that Sean Penn has innately misogynistic views. Oh wait, I already knew that.

^{*originally published on flipscreened.com on 09/22/2023
Daddio was reviewed out of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival}