Daddio Review: A Touching Chamber Piece By Some movies feel like they were made for me. Writer/director Christy Hall makes a stunning debut with , a film about a woman who gets in a taxi from JFK airport to her home in Midtown Manhattan. During the ride, she strikes up a conversation with her driver, leading to a deep connection as they talk about relationships, love, family, and all of the things that make people human.
I love films like this, especially being a born and bred New Yorker; seeing a movie set entirely at night in this gorgeous city makes me happy. Daddio is a touching, well-paced drama that isn’t quite as flawless as it could be, but is an exceptional piece of work from Hall. One of my favorite types of film is the chamber piece—the film that has very limited characters and locations.
This is the type of movie you don’t see often, but it exists in films like 12 Angry Men, My Dinner with Andre, Mass, Ex Machina, and The Outfit. These movies don’t put their emphasis on flashy visuals or large set pieces. The key aspect driving everything forward is the dialogue and the performances.
If I were to compare Daddio to two movies from a stylistic perspective, I would say Locke (a Tom Hardy movie entirely set in a moving car) and Before Sunrise (a one-night drama with two characters). It contains the DNA of a lot of the ingredients that make a chamber piece work. We have two characters who are strangers to each other but learn a lot about each other over the cou.
