'Daddio' Review: A Taxi Ride From Hell Could Use More Hell

The art of conversation has been a casualty of these deeply divided days in which we live, and the poor state of language in movies (so often expository, superficial or pretentious) is an unfortunate reflection of that. The new film “Daddio” is an attempt to put verbal discourse front and center, confining a couple from different life paths to a yellow cab, as you might expect when the protagonists are Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson. (Guess which one is the cabbie.)

Johnson's elegant, unnamed traveler, a computer programmer returning to New York's JFK airport after visiting her older sister in Oklahoma, may receive a flat rate for her trip, but the meter is always ticking at the mouth of the car. Penn's cheerfully grumpy and stubborn driver, Clark. He is a twice-married man prone to philosophizing on the street about the state of the world and, throughout the trip, about the unresolved affairs of his attractive companion. And as she drops hints about her life (sometimes inadvertently, then a little more freely), she returns some probing responses of her own, trying to open him up.

Writer-director Christy Hall, who originally conceived the script as a play, lets the talk flow: There's a significant stretch where the taxi doesn't even move. And when silence sets in, there's still an exchange to attend to, as Johnson occasionally apprehensively responds to a lover's insistent sexting. This third figure (invisible, save for a predictable photo sent to her phone) becomes another source of conjectural bravado for Clark, a self-proclaimed expert on male-female relationships, who makes eye contact through the rearview mirror.

Watching “Daddio” regularly, you never worry about anything untoward or combustible happening between the chauvinistic driver with a heart of gold and the smart if vulnerable young passenger who “can handle herself,” as Clark frequently observes. That lack of tension is the problem. The movie is less about a nuanced conversation between strangers than about a writer’s careful construction, designed to bridge a cultural impasse between the sexes. Hall is so eager to stage a big moment that subverts expectations and prompts dewy-eyed epiphanies — he’s a compassionate showoff! She can laugh at his rudeness! — that we’re never allowed to feel the molecules shift from moment to moment in any way other than spontaneous. Life may be the theme, but life is what’s missing.

It doesn’t help that, in directing his first feature, Hall has set himself one of the most difficult jobs: making the most of just two ingredients and one container. That’s probably why Jim Jarmusch opted for variety with five different stories for his memorable 1991 taxi cab series, “Night on Earth.” That film conveyed a palpable sense of time and place.

“Daddio,” on the other hand, is not as confident visually or in its rhythm. Hall has an experienced cinematographer in Phedon Papamichael (“Nebraska,” “Ford v Ferrari”), but he chooses an unfortunate studio sheen that suggests total control, rather than a what-might-happen vibe. Not that there's anything wrong with a movie so clearly made on a set. But Johnson's well-rehearsed poise and Penn's boldness make them look like the stars of a commercial for a fragrance called Common Ground rather than flesh-and-blood people. At times, it barely feels like they share the same car interior, which makes “Daddio” feel like a safe space, when what he needs is danger.