''The Daytrippers'' is a 1996

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film written and directed by

Greg Mottola Gregory J. Mottola (born July 11, 1964) is an American film director, screenwriter, and television director. Life and career Mottola grew up in Dix Hills, New York, in a Catholic family of Italian and Irish descent. He received his BFA in art f ...

in his feature directorial debut. It stars Hope Davis,

Stanley Tucci Stanley Tucci Jr. ( ; born November 11, 1960) is an American actor and filmmaker. Involved in acting from a young age, he made his film debut in John Huston's '' Prizzi's Honor'' (1985), and continued to play a variety of supporting roles in fil ...

, Anne Meara,

Parker Posey Parker Christian Posey (born November 8, 1968) is an American actress and musician. Posey is the recipient of a Golden Globe Award nomination, a Satellite Award nomination and two Independent Spirit Award nominations. Posey made her film debu ...

and

Liev Schreiber Isaac Liev Schreiber (; born October 4, 1967) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and narrator. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s after appearing in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywood ...

Plot

Eliza ( Hope Davis) discovers a love letter that may prove that her husband Louis (

) is having an affair, so she decides to go to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and confront him. Her family, including her parents Jim (Pat McNamara) and Rita ( Anne Meara), her sister Jo (

), and Jo's live-in boyfriend Carl (

), go along for the ride in the family

station wagon A station wagon ( US, also wagon) or estate car ( UK, also estate), is an automotive body-style variant of a sedan/saloon with its roof extended rearward over a shared passenger/cargo volume with access at the back via a third or fifth door ( ...

from

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18 ...

Cast

as Louis D'Amico * Hope Davis as Eliza Malone D'Amico * Pat McNamara as Jim Malone * Anne Meara as Rita Malone *

as Jo Malone *

as Carl Petrovic *

Campbell Scott Campbell Scott (born July 19, 1961) is an American actor, producer and director. His roles include Steve Dunne in '' Singles'', Mark Usher in '' House of Cards'', Joseph Tobin in ''Damages'', and Richard Parker in '' The Amazing Spider-Man'' an ...

as Eddie Masler *

Marcia Gay Harden Marcia Gay Harden (born August 14, 1959) is an American actress. She is the recipient of accolades including an Academy Award and a Tony Award, in addition to nominations for a Critics' Choice Movie Award and three Primetime Emmy Awards. Born ...

as Libby * Douglas McGrath as "Chap" *

Peter Askin Peter Askin (born 1940) is an actor, director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing the 2007 film '' Trumbo'', a documentary about the Oscar-winning Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo who was blacklisted for being a member of the Ho ...

as Nick Woodman *

Paul Herman Paul Herman (March 29, 1946 – March 29, 2022) was an American actor. He was best known for playing Randy in David O. Russell's dramedy '' Silver Linings Playbook'' (2012) and Whispers DiTullio in Martin Scorsese's crime epic ''The Irishman ...

as Leon

Release

''The Daytrippers'' premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival in January, 1996 where it won the festival’s first Grand Jury Prize. The film was released on March 5, 1997. The film opened to 52 theaters and grossed $35,988 in its opening weekend. Overall, the film grossed $2,099,677 domestically.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

the film has an approval rating of 73% based on reviews from 26 critics. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

it has a score of 73% based on reviews from 18 critics.

Owen Gleiberman Owen Gleiberman (born February 24, 1959) is an American film critic who has been chief film critic for '' Variety'' magazine since May 2016, a title he shares with . Previously, Gleiberman wrote for ''Entertainment Weekly'' from 1990 until 2014. ...

of ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular ...

'' gave it a grade B and compared to the film to

David O. Russell David Owen Russell (born August 20, 1958) is an American filmmaker. His early directing career includes the comedy films '' Spanking the Monkey'' (1994), '' Flirting with Disaster'' (1996), ''Three Kings'' (1999), and ''I Heart Huckabees'' (20 ...

's '' Flirting With Disaster'' but praised director Mottola as having "a lighter, warmer touch" and that he "keeps the action flowing and gets lively work" from the cast.

Awards

References

External links

* *
''The Daytrippers: Alone, Together''
an essay by Emily Nussbaum at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cine ...

1996 films 1996 comedy-drama films American comedy-drama films American independent films Canadian comedy-drama films Canadian independent films English-language Canadian films 1990s English-language films Films about dysfunctional families Films directed by Greg Mottola Films produced by Steven Soderbergh Films set in Long Island Films set in New York City Films shot in New York (state) Films shot in New York City 1996 directorial debut films 1996 independent films 1990s American films 1990s Canadian films {{indie-drama-film-stub