By Douglas Wood
Way back when, in the 1990s, before cell phones, Uber and the internet- when we used answering machines and the Yellow Pages- a renaissance took place in American cinema. Personal filmmaking returned, and like the New Hollywood auteurs from the ‘70s such as Altman, Scorsese, and Coppola, they achieved commercial and artistic success. A significant difference was that in the ‘70s, these exciting new films were financed by the studios. In the ‘90s, getting this kind of entertainment made was difficult and necessitated scrappy financing outside the Hollywood system.
We saw a new breed of independent filmmakers– those who resisted the excess and expense of the ’80s with comparatively lower budgets and often quirky approaches to genres of the past. Some of the bigger hits included Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, the Coen Brothers’ Fargo, and Dazed and Confused by Richard Linklater. But there were other wonderful films that never became household titles. One of the best is The Daytrippers, a quintessential ‘90s indie dramedy written and directed by Greg Mottola. It’s technically a road trip picture, but an unconventional one. The roads in question are the streets of New York. The vehicle is a suburban station wagon, and the travelers are a highly dysfunctional family, plus one.
What sets this trip in motion is a 17th century Elizabethan love poem that Eliza (a beguiling Hope Davis) finds on the floor of her husband’s closet. It’s signed, “Sandy” but other than that, its provenance is unknown. Is her husband, Louis, having an affair? Eliza and her family decide to find out by driving from Long Island to his office in Manhattan to confront him in person.
It’s the morning after Thanksgiving and Eliza’s sister, Jo, and her boyfriend, Carl, are visiting from Michigan for the holiday. Jo is played with perfection by Queen of the Indies, Parker Posey (HBO’s The White Lotus) who is miraculously irreverent, jaded and sexy all at the same time. Carl, in the capable hands of Liev Schreiber, is a hilariously insufferable pseudointellectual– a pretentious wannabe author who, during much of the journey, shares with the family the plot of his latest novel, a Kafkaesque fable about a man with a dog’s head, or as Jo describes it to her plebeian mother, Rita (Anne Meara), “it’s Dr. Seuss for adults.”
Rita is Carl’s biggest fan, or perhaps she fawns over any man who might take care of her headstrong daughter (who really doesn’t need taking care of). Meara’s Rita is a force of nature– an overbearing mother-from-hell who sees Jo as a fool (she actually uses that word to her face.) In a film of memorable performances, Meara’s is perhaps the most impressive, funny and furious, and in the final moments, a source of unexpected pathos. Her long-suffering husband, Jim, is the driver of this band of neurotics and Pat McNamara establishes his passive, taciturn character with the most subtle of facial expressions.
Mottola packs this cast of characters tightly into a car then lets the various relationships unravel. When they arrive at the publishing firm where Louis works, they discover his boss has let him off for the day but suggests they can probably find him at a book release party scheduled for later that evening. Back in the car, they witness Louis crossing the street and getting into a cab with an attractive woman they suspect must be Sandy. The chase is on. Well, sort of. Jim’s a cautious driver and decides to brake rather than go through a yellow light. As Jo comments, “That was the world’s shortest car chase.” (If this were an ‘80s studio picture, it would have been an endless action sequence.)
Rita, however, is determined to nab Carl, and gets out of the car, racing after the cab on foot, yelling his name. She gives up, breathing heavily, until she passes out on the sidewalk. “Don’t go into the light, mom,” says Jo, as if reminding her mother not to forget bread the next time she goes shopping.
The search caper continues in a series of witty scenes, although a couple surely would’ve been cut from the script were this a commercial movie. The suspense dissipates and the story loses some of its momentum. One scene involves a bystander who invites the family into his apartment when he sees Rita’s need to recover from her fall. Another involves Eliza’s helping two bickering sisters carry a television set into their apartment. Neither advances the plot nor involves key characters, but scenes like this add texture and richness (not to mention laugh-out-loud humor) to the story and affect us in ways slicker movies don’t. While they may slow down the pace, they do add a distinctly New York personality and verisimilitude to the film.
Mottola clearly has affection for this world and is eager to share it with us, no matter what tone the moments require. The bossa nova score he’s chosen (by Richard Martinez) is breezy one moment and wistful the next. When Eliza finally meets up with her husband (Stanley Tucci) at a rooftop party and solves the mystery of the love poem, Mottola ensures that what follows is an honest and raw exploration of the messiness of families with an emotional depth that takes us by surprise. Despite a few bumps along the way, The Daytrippers is a ride worth taking.
Rated R
Currently streaming on Prime, Hulu, Apple TV+, YouTube and Hulu.