Movie Review: Daddio

The first rule of screenwriting has always been, "show, do not tell". Less dialogue is always better in a screenplay. Subtext and visual descriptions are better. A screenplay is not a novel, it is mostly a series of visual directions that depict a story. There are exceptions to the rule, including the 3 Ethan Hawk movies, "Before Sunrise", "Before Midnight" and "Before Sunset" which were released from 1995 - 2013, and consisted of almost 100% dialogue. Making a movie like this is risky because the conversation has to be compelling enough to hold an audience's attention for 2 hours, this can be very hard or at times impossible to accomplish.

The new movie "Daddio", starring Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson is a 1 hour 41 minute conversation between a cab driver Clark, played by Penn and a passenger named Girlie, played by Johnson from JFK airport to her home in Brooklyn. There were moments of interesting conversation and other moments where it was hard to stay engaged with what was being said. Some of the language was too much on the disgusting side, mostly unnecessary considering the majority of the conversations. Too much usage of the F word is once again still something to always expect in too many movies.

Overall, I thought the acting was good, and perhaps a solid comeback for Johnson after her horrendous recent Madame Web movie some months ago. It took courage for both Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson to agree to act in this movie.

The Rotten Tomatoes critic's reviews are 79% with the audience rating a very low 50%. There is not much to recommend here, other than for the most loyal Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson fans.