Dakota Johnson Is Actually Great in Daddio

Those of us who remember the days when Sean Penn was widely regarded as one of the best actors of his generation will be pleased with his entertaining turn as a gruff motormouthed cabbie in writer-director Christy Hall’s Daddio, a film set within the confines of a taxi over the course of one New York night. What might surprise us, however, is that the other person in the car is played by Dakota Johnson, who nearly acts him off the screen. Daddio is a classic two-hander, focusing entirely on the seesawing power dynamic between two very different individuals. As such, it’s at times theatrical and precious, a bit too on the nose with its metaphors and symbols and running themes. But boy, can it be fun to watch these two go at it.

The film starts with Johnson’s unnamed character arriving at JFK and hopping in a cab to midtown driven by Clark (Penn), who, after an extended period of quiet, starts chatting her up. “You’re my last fare of the night,” he tells her. “I won?” she replies. “You fucking won, sweetheart, you really did,” he replies, with a raspy grin. “What do I win?” “Anything you want.” It’s a ridiculous exchange — a movie exchange. If you heard it in real life, you’d probably tell this weirdo to pull over (though, admittedly, they’re on the BQE). But we buy it because the actors buy it. He seems eager to talk about everything under the sun, initially offering predictable bits of world-weary wisdom on credit cards and technology (“These fuckin’ apps, all of them”), and she seems mildly amused by his insistence on doing so.

To her credit, Hall doesn’t play coy with their conversation, trying to sell us on why this beautiful woman (who’s probably heard it all, from all sorts of people) would keep engaging with this stranger’s potentially creepy offerings. Partly, Johnson’s character (known in the credits simply as “Girlie”) is distracted: She’s receiving texts throughout from what appears to be a very horny and very drunk boyfriend, who sends her dick pics and lusty admonitions, and she’s unsure about answering them. We first see her hesitate over whether to even let him know she’s landed. As the film continues, this unseen figure will loom large over their conversation.

It’s been some years since I’ve come across the kind of old-school, salt-of-the-eart’ Noo Yawk cabbie like the one Penn plays here. But the film isn’t meant to be realistic. Despite the enclosed space and the constant dialogue, Hall has made a movie-movie, and that counts for a lot. The lights of the city dance seductively across the car’s windows and the characters’ faces, while Dickon Hinchliffe’s quivering score maintains a tense, twilight mood. (The composer, some will remember, also did the music for Claire Denis’s masterful 2002 strangers-in-a-car picture, Friday Night. Hall has wisely borrowed from the best.)

Clark (who says he’d prefer to be known as Vinnie, and whose real name we might start to wonder about after a certain point) pries further into Girlie’s life and her background, in particular her childhood in “the armpit of Oklahoma,” which is where she happens to be returning from on this trip. There is talk of absent, aloof fathers, and older boyfriends, and the way women’s value is reduced in the eyes of men as they get older. There’s also talk of the way men prowl and insinuate themselves into relationships, what they’re looking for and how far they’re willing to go with it. “Looking like a family man is more important than being one,” Clark tells her. He has some experience in this matter, having done his share of prowling, and presents his worldview as a kind of truth missive from the other side.

Daddio traffics in a lot of dime-store psychology, but that just adds to its old-fashioned qualities. You’ve probably heard every single one of Clark’s “insights” many times before — from friends, enemies, overfamiliar randos on social media, and other fictional characters on other movies and shows. But coming from the mouth of a croaky gasbag like the one Penn plays here, it feels right. There’s a rotten purity to his performance: He would say all this, and he wouldn’t be entirely wrong, either.

Ultimately, however, it’s Johnson’s show. She doesn’t talk as much as Vinnie does, but she reveals a lot more than he does. And the film turns on how she chooses to reveal it — the way that her slow-burning anxiety leads to bursts of honesty. We sense that this is someone who’s been keeping a lot of this stuff bottled inside, who sees a chance in this moment to blurt it all out to a stranger, not so much to let him in but to simply get her thoughts out in the open. (“Who else are you gonna talk to about this shit?” Vinnie asks. “You’re never gonna see me again.”) As the actress balances the restraint of this introverted character with the dramatic demands of a screenplay built entirely on conversation, we’re right there with her, watching these small tales of suspense play out on her face. She makes the movie her own.