WLR #10

A Quiet Place: Day One

Directed by Michael Sarnoski

(The opinion below is from a Wendy Lee who spent the entire film in a state of high intoxication.)

So, here’s the thing—I was kinda tipsy. Okay fine, I was stoned on too many vodkas at a brunch I was nervous about attending. I fell asleep about 40 minutes in, and drifted in and out until the end credits rolled. But let’s be 100: my intoxication is no excuse for the film. My judgment may have been clouded a bit, but I promise, it’s the film’s lack of substance, lack of anything new, that really lulled me to sleep. I liked the first two films in the franchise (can we call it a franchise yet?). If it’s trying to be, this one might—depending on the box office—put an end to it. (Please)

After three movies, the series is on its last legs. It was before this installment. Even with Lupita Nyong'o, one of the best actresses working today, some decent music and visuals, the film came across as a pointless cash grab. More importantly, it wasn’t scary. Not once did I jolt up startled. The first two films had legitimate scares; this one felt like a generic monster movie with little reason to keep conscious. An unnecessary addition to what was, what is a solid series.

The first two are great.

One-and-a-half-stars

Horizon: An American Saga

Directed by Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner’s career is starting to feel like one of those stubborn perennial plants — the kind of you thought would have died out by now but, against all odds, keeps coming back each season, looking more or less the same as it ruins your backyard.

He’s a Western man! Much like Eastwood is, though with a different perspective — a less cynical, more wounded nostalgia permeates his westerns—a different approach to the frontier. It’s worked: he won an Oscar for Dances with Wolves by dusting off the genre’s white-savior template and turning it into something achingly sincere. And it’s failed: The Postman, a terrible little film that felt like it was running on pure delusion. There’s something humbling about watching a man ricochet between brilliance and folly, a reminder that ambition has always been both his fuel and his flaw. Kevin Costner tries.

Now, in the twilight of his career, Costner has doubled down with Horizon: An American Saga, a twelve-hour epic released in theatrical installments. Costner isn’t just asking you to watch a movie — he’s asking you to believe in movies again. In the age of binge-watching and endless streaming, he’s inviting us to leave our couches four separate times, purchase four separate ticket stubs, and sink into a sprawling narrative that spans not just landscapes but lifetimes. Like, 16 hours total. It’s a commitment that will cost audiences time, patience, and probably more than a hundred bucks, in short, he’s fucking crazy. But Wendy Lee is an old soul, so admire it I do.

So, Wendy Lee, how was the film? Any good?

Surprisingly, yes — or at least, it’s worth your time, even if it’s a little too soon to say whether the whole thing will be. It’s frustrating in places — bloated, meandering, full of scenes that could’ve been trimmed and a musical score that seems recycled from some cheap TV drama. It has the feel of a first act that hasn’t quite figured out how to stand on its own, ending with a montage of shots that suggest “To Be Continued” in the most literal sense. And yet, for all of that, it entertained me. The narrative has weight, and the cinematography is wonderful, a step up from Costner’s recent small-screen ventures, and a reminder of what he can bring to the big screen.

This is not just his story. Not at all. It’s a sprawling, often brutal meditation on the interconnected fates of settlers, Indigenous people, and the unforgiving land that holds them all in its grip. There are moments of devastating violence — some of which feel almost gratuitous in their intensity — but these scenes are counterbalanced by quieter ones that explore relationships with tenderness, even if the writing is a bit ham-fisted at times. Again, Costner tries. He also cares.

He’s genuinely interested in these people, in how they survive, betray, forgive, endure. That passion runs throughout the film, even in moments when it brushes up against narratives that modern audiences might find politically dicey. There is a kind of grace in his refusal to apologize for caring about the kind of people you’re not supposed to care about anymore, or if you do care, you’re caring in the wrong way.

There’s also something admirable — or maybe just audacious — about the way Costner has bet everything on this project. He financed the film himself, putting both his money and his reputation on the line in a way that feels reckless, or from a bygone era of art first filmmakers. You get the sense, watching Horizon, that this is a man who knows he doesn’t need another hit, but wants to leave something behind that matters — something with more permanence than the TV ratings for Yellowstone. And he doesn’t care if he takes a monetary hit. Whether or not he’ll pull it off remains to be seen, but the effort alone feels like a low-key triumph.

Three stars

Daddio

Directed by Christy Hall

There’s a special spot in my heart for good films set in a single location. When they work, they create something miraculous—an entire world unfolds between four walls or within the confines of one room. It really exemplifies the power of cinema. The premise sounds simple, but the challenge is immense: can a story, confined by space, stretch itself across ninety minutes or more without collapsing? Without boring me? It’s paid off beautifully in some of my favorites like Rear Window, 12 Angry Men, The Breakfast Club, and The Lighthouse, films that transform geographical limits to make something as epic as any science fiction film roaming the galaxy.

So naturally, when I heard about Daddio—a new film, terribly named, written and directed by Christy Hall, was set entirely inside a cab—I was intrigued. It’s the sort of premise I want to root for: two characters, a limited setting, no tricks to fall back on but dialogue, acting, a little music, and maybe the unspoken dynamics simmering just beneath the surface. Unfortunately, Daddio shoots a brick as the boys say. It’s a film that talks and talks and talks and talks but has nothing to say. Maybe Christy Hall should run for office…

Sean Penn, with all his worn, soulful gravitas, plays the cabbie—Mikey? Vinny? Something working-class and vaguely outdated, like his entire persona. He’s a relic of another era who thinks he’s smarter than he is, eager to wax poetic about gender roles like it’s still 1957. Dakota Johnson sits in the passenger seat, tasked with enduring his monologues, somehow holding her own. Johnson has never been the most dynamic screen presence, and in this film, her performance hovers in that same neutral zone — competent but unremarkable, the acting equivalent of a shrug. To her credit, she doesn’t disappear opposite Penn’s louder, more insistent performance. But the movie doesn’t give her much to do beyond exist as a kind of passive receiver for Mikey’s worldview as she receives dick pics from the married man she’s fucking on her phone in the backseat.

The direction is intimate to the point of claustrophobia, nausea. This kind of framing can lend a story immediacy — forcing us into proximity with the characters, locking us into their world. Here, though, it just makes the ride feel longer and uncomfortable. I felt, as the viewer, like IT WAS ME stuck in the backseat the cab listening to an insufferable Mikey/VInny yap. If I had a dollar for every time Mikey called women stupid, I could’ve paid for the cab fare and still had enough left for a stiff drink afterward. A drink much needed after this.

To be fair, the character does feel true to life in a way that isn’t exactly flattering. Cab drivers—especially the chatty ones who love the sound of their own voice—are often unfiltered, their conversation bouncing between bravado and bigotry as they smile in the rearview mirror. But Daddio is so committed to this authenticity that it ends up revealing nothing new. You sit there, listening to Penn drone on about the immutable differences between men and women, and you think: if this guy were really a cab driver in 2024, he’d have more to say about chem-trails or voter fraud or Covid-19 than this…

It’s biggest sin is how it positions itself as something earnest. It clearly wants to say something meaningful about connection across age and gender, vulnerability, regret… It tries so hard to tug at the heartstrings, but it never finds the right chord. I’m not asking for Before Sunrise here either, I’m a reasonable Wendy Lee, but I wanted to care about these characters a little bit. If Vinny got distracted and the cab flew off the Grand Central Parkway, I wouldn’t have batted an eyelash. And that’s saying something. I’m usually a sucker for films that yap a lot. If a movie about two strangers revealing their souls to each other can’t squeeze a single tear out of me, you failed girl.

Two stars