In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based on where my interests lead me and what’s available from my local public library.
It’s the day after Thanksgiving and the extendedMalone family are gathered at the family home on Long Island, where it seems the biggest drama of the long weekend will be whether adult daughter Jo (Parker Posey) can manage to sleep with her boyfriend Carl (Liev Schreiber) without her parents finding out. Then the other daughter Eliza (Hope Davis) drops by with a real bombshell: while tidying up after her husband Louis (Stanley Tucci) left for work, she found what appears to be a love note written by someone named “Sandy.”
Mother Rita (Anne Meara) is immediately suspicious that Louis has a sidepiece and thinks Hope should go to the City (in Long Island terms that means Manhattan, New York City) to confront him face-to-face. And because this is the kind of family that does things together, everyone packs into the family station wagon (which of course has fake wood paneling) to support her and do the kind of tourist stuff that people from Long Island do when they venture into the Big City. Needless to say, they soon get embroiled in an amateur investigation into what Louis is actually up to, and that provides most of the film’s action.
The Daytrippers, writer/director Greg Mottola’s first film, has several things working in its favor. First, Mottola knows how to establish a sense of place, from the ranch houses of Deer Park to the strip malls and office parks lining much of the drive in, to the wild mixture that was and is Manhattan. On top of its merits as a film, The Daytrippers is worth a watch because it provides a nice snapshot of what greater New York looked like in the mid-1990s. Second, the dialogue is well-written so the characters reveal themselves through their words. Third, it has a brilliant cast, much better than you would expect for a first film, and the actors are able to make the most out of what could otherwise be an overly talky movie.
Take Carl, for instance, who fancies himself to be an intellectual and feels free to proclaim tidbits like “Architecture is dead. The architects have run out of ideas. It’s all references” to a captive audience. Rita is a lover of gossip and drama, always ready to jump to the worst conclusion in any ambiguous situation, while Jim would rather avoid the drama. Eliza blandly insists everything is fine, while Jo seems to be stuck in a long adolescence as the rebellious daughter. The people they meet in New York are well-executed versions of familiar types as well, including a friendly fellow who turns out to be a con artist, his embarrassed adult son, a publishing assistant who overuses the term “Rubenesque” and tells the same story over and over, and a handsome author who thinks everyone finds him as attractive as he finds himself.
Both the humor and the drama in The Daytrippers is gentle, with some unfortunate reliance on stereotypes (particularly with regard to Meara’s character) and a big reveal that will shock no one today (I’m not sure it was shocking to many in 1996 either, except perhaps senior citizens from the suburbs). John Inwood’s location shooting does a great job in creating a sense of place in a film that often seems more like a play (seriously, it’s all about the talk), and Richard Martinez’s soundtrack assures you that nothing you will see in this film will be too terribly serious. All in all, it’s a pleasant little film, nicely put together on a low budget, and holds the honor of winning the Grand Jury Prize in the very first year the Slamdance Film Festival was held. | Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 1001
Technical details: 87 min.; color; screen ratio 1.85:1; English.
Edition reviewed: DVD
Extras: audio commentary with writer/director Greg Mottola, editor Anne McCabe, and producer Steven Soderbergh; interviews with Mottola, Hope Davis, Live Schreiber, and Campbell Scott; Mottola’s 1985 short film “The Hatbox” with commentary by the director; booklet with an essay by film critic Emily Nussbaum.
Fun Fact: Siskel and Ebert gave The Daytrippers two thumbs down when they reviewed it in 1997, with Ebert saying that the characters were “whiney and negative” and Siskel wondering why the film was made at all.
Parting Thought: How often has a film been rejected by Sundance but accepted at Cannes, as was The Daytrippers? It was even nominated for the Golden Camera (Best First Feature Film) at Cannes, which just goes to show that Sundance doesn’t know everything.
