Review: Daddio
What we have in Daddio is a failure to imagine—and what a failure. In a time when it’s finally trendy again to explore gender, identity, and the systems we take for granted, how exhausting for a movie to believe repeating the same cliches is a revelation.
Any time a woman character claims she’s “not that girl” is generally a clear indicator of cliche (and a red flag), and Dakota Johnson’s fare embodies everything about the concept to the degree that her character is just credited as “Girlie.” Meanwhile, Sean Penn’s salty, working-class cabbie chauffeuring her around NYC for a long convo and informal therapy session gets a claim to no less than three character names throughout Daddio’s runtime.
