Last week Disc Dive saw us take to the skies. This week we’re piling into a station wagon and searching New York City in The Daytrippers.
Title: The Daytrippers
Director: Greg Mottola
Released: January 19, 1996 (Premiere – United States – Slamdance Film Festival)
Runtime: 1 hour 27 minutes
Disc Format: Criterion Blu-ray
Eliza (Hope Davis) and Louis (Stanley Tucci) are happily married, or so she thought. The morning after Thanksgiving, after Louis has headed into the city, Eliza finds a love letter addressed to her husband. There’s a poem inside that makes it easy to read between the lines.
She takes it to her parents’ house. Around the kitchen table, Rita (Anne Meara) and Jim (Pat McNamara), Jo (Parker Posey), and Jo’s boyfriend Carl (Liev Schreiber) all take a look. Rita doesn’t need long. You can’t confront him over the phone. If he’s lying, you’ll see it in his eyes. They all decide what needs to happen and pile into the family station wagon, heading for New York City.
Their first stop is Louis’ publisher’s office. While Eliza waits for his boss, she ends up talking to a writer named Eddie Masler (Campbell Scott), who recognizes the poem in the letter as “The Definition of Love.” Louis’s boss eventually surfaces and tells them that he’s out for the day, but expected at a book release party that evening. While Eliza is occupied, Rita searches his office. She finds photos of Louis at a birthday party with a woman none of them know. A recognizable restaurant in the background tips them off to the apartment building’s location. Eliza redials the numbers saved on Louis’s desk phone and reaches a voicemail for Sandy and Monica.
They drive to the apartment and the name on the buzzer matches. While they wait outside, Louis walks out with the woman from the photos and they get into a cab. The family follows, but lose them at a red light.
The search for Louis and Sandy is only just beginning.
The Daytrippers was both a blind buy and a first-time watch for me. I’d heard good things about it over the years and have generally enjoyed most of the other Greg Mottola films that I’ve seen (Superbad, Paul, and Adventureland). Turns out, the gamble was worth it.
This is an unconventional road trip movie, but it works. The premise gives you a plausible reason for this particular group of people to be on the road together, which is more than a lot of road trip movies bother with. While the letter gets things started, it’s Rita who actually gets everyone in the car and sets things in motion.
The banter between family members lands and the chemistry across the ensemble feels genuine. Mottola peppers in side characters along the way to keep things fresh, and none of it ever feels forced. The interactions with them are just as enjoyable as the moments in the station wagon. Through it all, a quiet sadness accumulates. The letter may have started the day, but what comes into focus by the end has less to do with Louis than with each of them.
At a brisk 87 minutes, it’s the perfect length. Any longer and it runs the risk of feeling meandering. Instead, The Daytrippers is built around a single day’s events and never tries to be more than that.
This was an enjoyable watch that feels like it will benefit from multiple viewings.