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'The Daytrippers': You've Got a Good Reason

Sometimes a movie picks you up -- as if you were driftwood -- and carries you all the way downstream. This sense of smooth exhilaration usually occurs in well-constructed mega-budget pictures, in which the prospect of something mysterious, awesome or terrifying keeps you gliding along.

But "The Daytrippers" achieves all this in an adventure of a different kind. The movie, written and directed by first-time filmmaker Greg Mottola, has nothing to do with exploding volcanoes, aliens, Death Stars, Arnold Schwarzenegger or even that Beatles song. It has everything to do with hilarity, seriocomic suspense and intense audience involvement.

This low-budget film, which took the Grand Jury prize at the 1996 Slamdance International Film Festival (an increasingly important event devoted to beginning filmmakers), was shot in a whirlwind 16 days, with relatively big-name actors (Campbell Scott, Stanley Tucci, Marcia Gay Harden) performing for next to nothing. Produced for a mere $700,000, "The Daytrippers" proves that a great movie isn’t a matter of dollars, so much as creativity. With one dramatic question hanging unresolved -- a husband’s suspicious behavior -- this story pulls you along a wave of rabid curiosity.

Sweet, gentle, Long Island teacher Eliza D’Amico (Hope Davis), believes she is living a happy life with her husband, Louis (Tucci). But after a wonderful night of lovemaking, in which he has -- yet again -- declared his love for her, something turns sour. (Make that potentially sour. If there’s one thing to be learned from this movie, it’s that nothing is necessarily what it seems to be.)

That something is a letter Eliza finds, which quotes a deeply romantic 17th-century poem by Andrew Marvell, and which is signed "Sandy." Eliza, still hesitant to draw any conclusions, shows the letter to her parents.

The great, underlying joke of this movie is the family she’s stuck with. Her mother, Rita Malone (Anne Meara), is a manipulator with deep-rooted suspicions and grating resentment toward her deadpan, henpecked husband, Jim (Pat McNamara). And Eliza’s straight-talking, kooky sister, Jo (Parker Posey), seethes with comic animosity towards her intellectually pretentious boyfriend, Carl (Liev Schreiber).

Naturally, Rita assumes the worst. With her customary bullying, she persuades Eliza to confront her husband in New York City, where he works for a publishing company. She also volunteers herself and the family to drive her into town. The dysfunctional family Malone (mother, father, both daughters and Carl) bundles into the station wagon and drives to the big city for a showdown.

It’s the start of an intentionally convoluted, hilarious odyssey. The car’s heater gives out almost immediately, which sets a grumpy tone. And Carl decides to describe his cumbersome idea for a novel, "an allegory about spiritual survival in the contemporary world," which features a man born with a dog’s head.

In the city, they discover Louis isn’t at the office. They also encounter a cooing receptionist called Cassandra (could this be Sandy?), who seems very enamored with Louis. Rifling through Louis’s desk, Rita and Eliza find an incriminating photograph, which they use to track down Sandy’s address. The Malones and Carl find the apartment, sit in the freezing car, and wait.

You haven’t heard the half of it -- and that’s the great, extended joy of the picture. The daytrippers’ visit to New York is a saga of amusing developments and interruptions, which brings them into contact with a flirtatious novelist (Scott), SoHo poseurs, a set of antagonistic sisters, a deadbeat dad and other strange folks (including Harden).

Mottola has a genius for sardonic comedy. At one point, the excitement of chasing after Louis is too much for Rita. She faints. Carl attempts to revive her, begging Jo to keep talking to the unconscious woman.

"Don’t go into the light, Mom," says Jo lamely.

When you’re through watching "The Daytrippers," you think about its minor imperfections, not because the film’s bad, but because it’s so good. Some viewers, for instance, may feel dissatisfied with the story’s open-ended conclusion. But in a sense, that’s what marks this movie. By not resolving itself into a Hollywood-committee-pleasing conclusion, it keeps its own integrity. As with life, problems beget other problems, and revelations lead to further ones. Things keep flowing, and that makes you yearn -- not for an ending -- but a sequel.

THE DAYTRIPPERS (Unrated) — Contains sexual situations and profanity.