1138 Daddy Longlegs

[swo17]

Daddy Longlegs



Mining the emotional sense memories of their own fractured childhoods, Josh and Benny Safdie craft a by turns empathetic and disquieting portrait of parental dysfunction poised between fierce love and terrifying irresponsibility. Manic Manhattan movie theater projectionist Lenny (cowriter and longtime Safdie collaborator Ronald Bronstein) is perhaps the last person who should be raising kids, yet here he is, trying (and failing) to keep it together as his life unravels over the two whirlwind weeks that he has custody of his young boys (real-life brothers Sage and Frey Ranaldo), with an impromptu road trip, a sleeping-pill mishap, and a night in jail all part of the chaos. Vérité New York naturalism gives way to flights of surreal lyricism in Daddy Longlegs, a blearily impressionistic anti–fairy tale that finds unexpected humanity in the seemingly most irredeemable of fathers.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital transfer, approved by directors Josh and Benny Safdie, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack
• New interviews with actors Sage and Frey Ranaldo and their parents, photographer Leah Singer and musician Lee Ranaldo
• Documentary from 2017 about the Safdies
• Footage of Sage and Frey Ranaldo's first meeting with actor Ronald Bronstein
• Making-of program
• There's Nothing You Can Do (2008), a short film by the Safdies featuring members of the Daddy Longlegs cast and crew
• Deleted scenes
• Promotional films and trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: A 2009 print interview with the Safdies

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Curious to see what the consensus on this will be in 2022. I remember singing the praises of this back in 2010 on this forum. It's nowhere near as abrasive as Frownland, but the Safdies prior to Heaven Knows What really belong closer to the realm of mumblecore with a ramshackle production, plenty of non-actors clearly being non-actors, and an aesthetic no where near as meticulous as their current films. But the roots of their current cinema are still here from the endless sort of scheming and hustling of Bronstein's main character serving as a prototype to the endless bad decisions and inability to take a breathe that are foundations to the main characters of their last two features. In the 2000s, "indie" became a marketing term to sell a type of ethos and aesthetic, but here was a 16mm film about a weirdo in New York taking risks and standing out amongst the rest of the eras films that truly was an independent feature that resembled nothing in the commercial world of its time. This was actually one of the last films I saw in theater prior to lockdown shutting down all the theaters, but it was exciting to revisit it over a decade after I first saw it. I was impressed with it when I saw it back in 2010, and in 2020, and loved it more now. I still found it to be very sweet, in a chaotic Safdie way and among the best indie films of the 2000s.

I doubt it will happen, but if Criterion is digging into the old IFC catalog, I'd still love to see a release of Aaron Katz's Cold Weather.

[therewillbeblus]

Daddy Longlegs is an interesting film, and clearly a very personal work for the Safdies, but I didn't care for it all that much in the end. Mileage will vary depending on how thick your threshold is for indulging irresponsible and immature parenting, but there's a nebulous attitude towards it by the filmmakers that might be authentic to their experience half-empathizing, half-frustrated, loving and resentful, but it comes across too neutral and seemingly confused about how they want to portray their father. I do hope Criterion keeps pumping out Safdie works, if only so we get the ruthlessly-accurate Heaven Knows What- getting extras featuring Arielle Holmes would be fascinating.

[knives]

Alternatively I deeply love it. It was my first film by them and the unique way they use a typical comedy archetype, the Adam Sandler dad, just works really well for me, though I’m insane and would probably rank it as the least of their features I’ve seen.

[A Tempted Christ]

DVDBeaver

[zedz]

I started watching this last night and immediately knew I'd seen it before and had not just not liked it but recommended that it not be programmed in a festival. How could I have forgotten? Well, when I saw it early in its lifespan, it was called Go Get Some Rosemary. I don't know when it was renamed, but they're both terrible titles! For more than a decade, Go Get Some Rosemary has been my personal by-word / reference point for "US indie flash of nothing," and I thought the film had been rightfully forgotten.

[Randall Maysin Again]

DVDBeaver

A rare opportunity was missed here. An opportunity to write, "Daddy Beaverlegs".

[Mr Sausage]

I started watching this last night and immediately knew I'd seen it before and had not just not liked it but recommended that it not be programmed in a festival. How could I have forgotten? Well, when I saw it early in its lifespan, it was called Go Get Some Rosemary. I don't know when it was renamed, but they're both terrible titles! For more than a decade, Go Get Some Rosemary has been my personal by-word / reference point for "US indie flash of nothing," and I thought the film had been rightfully forgotten.

How do you feel about their other work?

[Ishmael]

DVDBeaver

A rare opportunity was missed here. An opportunity to write, "Daddy Beaverlegs".

Not "Daddy LongBeaver"?

[zedz]

I started watching this last night and immediately knew I'd seen it before and had not just not liked it but recommended that it not be programmed in a festival. How could I have forgotten? Well, when I saw it early in its lifespan, it was called Go Get Some Rosemary. I don't know when it was renamed, but they're both terrible titles! For more than a decade, Go Get Some Rosemary has been my personal by-word / reference point for "US indie flash of nothing," and I thought the film had been rightfully forgotten.

How do you feel about their other work?

I'm not a huge fan, but their more recent films are in a different league of accomplishment. I can see that stupid and irritating male protagonists are the common denominator, and that's really not my thing. I don't think the Safdies bring any special insight into that kind of character: it's more like they enjoy wallowing in bad behaviour. But the more recent films are much, much better at constructing secondary characters, staging and pacing action, and just generally delivering a solid viewing experience. Pattinson in Good Time and Sandler in Uncut Gems might still be arseholes, but they're compulsively watchable.

[therewillbeblus]

Heaven Knows What really felt like the turning point, where they reworked their passion for raw 'heightened realism' in a more mature manner. I wonder how much of that had to do with being humbled by Arielle Holmes' story and allowing her to take center stage, inserting less of their own baggage and issuing some restraint to meet their character where they're at with unconditional interest. That's part of the beauty of their more recent work - a kind of mashed quasi-humanism, that's "compulsively watchable" because of that absorption the Safdies have that's increasingly divorced from 'self'. Daddy Longlegs may just be too close to home for them to do anything interesting with - As I mentioned upthread, it doesn't seem like they have any idea of what to do with their movie, partly because they don't seem to know how they feel about their childhood or why they're making this movie. They just feel feelings and wanted to share something raw and real to them, but it means little in this context.