Films set in cabs could be their own subgenre – the main ones that spring to mind are the various works of Jim Jarmusch, plenty of Woody Allen and David Cronenberg’s DeLillo adaptation Cosmopolis (2012).
In Daddio, a cute blonde programmer (Dakota Johnson) lands at JFK and hails a taxi driven by a blue-collar cabbie played by Sean Penn, who begins asking her a million and one questions. What ensues is a deep dive into both their lives: their thoughts and feelings on sex, life and, well, daddy issues.
Given the bare-bones nature of the work, the script must come alive for it to be anything but navel-gazing for the actors, but writer-director Christy Hall’s basic and predictable chin wag between the two leads never reaches for any of the comedic, dramatic or genre-bending heights that this premise could offer. ★★ 1/2
- Starts Jun 27
