Daddy Longlegs (2009 film)

Daddy Longlegs is a 2009 American independent film directed by the New York-based brothers the Safdie brothers, Josh and Benny, and produced by Tom Scott and Casey Neistat. It premiered at the 2009 Directors' Fortnight section of the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival, under the title Go Get Some Rosemary. It premiered in the United States at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival in the non-competitive Spotlight section.^[1] It premiered commercially via IFC Films, theatrically and on-demand, on May 14, 2010.^[2]

Plot

Lenny, a divorced father and a projectionist at a Manhattan movie theater, gets custody of his sons Sage and Frey for two weeks of the year. During these two weeks he encourages a playful attitude in the boys while largely acting irresponsibly. Lenny behaves obnoxiously and argues openly with other adults—including their school principal and a homeless panhandling veteran—in front of his sons, often involving them in the conversations as he enjoys setting up various improvised "games" with them. Lenny is aided in caring for the boys by his similarly irresponsible on-and-off girlfriend Leni. Early in the two weeks, Leni brings the boys a gift of a salamander, which is promptly forgotten about and starves to death.

On his first weekend with the boys, Lenny goes out drinking and hooks up with a girl named Roberta. Learning that Roberta is about to travel upstate the next morning with her boyfriend, Lenny impulsively decides to accompany them, bringing his sons along as well. Back home, they are visited by Lenny's European friend Salvi, who is hard to understand and plays a dangerous game where he stands on the boys' stomachs. Lenny has a scheduling mixup at his job, working a shift when he was supposed to pick the kids up from school. He solves this problem by changing a reel then running on foot to the school and keeping the kids at the theater with him. There, they draw a comic about Lenny peeing in his boss's water cup and print 999 copies.

In order to make time for a date with Leni, Lenny hires his neighbor Jake to watch the kids for a night. The date ends badly when Leni decides to walk along the subway rails and Lenny refuses to join her. Meanwhile, Sage and Frey insert pee into a toy firetruck and shoot it at Jake, who tells Lenny he will no longer watch his kids when he gets back. Leni returns to Lenny's apartment to make up with him just as he gets a call from his boss, who needs him to work overnight and threatens to fire him for the incident with the printer. Lenny does not want the kids to wake up alone in the morning, and since Leni is unable to stay overnight he instead decides to drug them with smaller doses of a sleeping pill he uses. This causes Sage and Frey to sleep through the day and remain unresponsive into the next night. Lenny has a doctor friend diagnose them, learning that they will be unconscious for the next two days minimum.

While Sage and Frey remain unconscious, Lenny steers clear of the apartment as it is now a stressful environment for him. He stays overnight at Leni's apartment but leaves a spare key where it is easily found by a nosy neighbor the next morning. After this Leni cuts contact with Lenny. The next night, he meets up with some other friends, but gets all of them arrested by indiscreetly spray painting on a wall. After Lenny returns home from jail, Sage and Frey finally wake up. Lenny takes them to a park, then a museum where they see a large-scale model of a mosquito and he jokes about having killed a giant mosquito in his apartment. Later that night, the boys are frightened by the prospect of a giant mosquito and can't sleep, even though Lenny insists it's not real.

The next day, the boys return to their mother's custody. Lenny, now alone, grows increasingly discontent, throwing public temper tantrums around his friends and repeatedly calling Leni, who does not pick up. After having a surreal nightmare about the giant mosquito, Lenny abducts his sons from school, convincing their nanny that there was a scheduling mix-up. While cooking for the boys, he sends them to the grocery store with a shopping list. Upon returning they find all the furniture in the apartment packed up, and Lenny reveals they are moving, though the circumstances are left unclear. When Lenny irritates the hired movers enough that they kick him out onto the street, he and the boys carry their belongings around on the sidewalk and load them onto a Roosevelt Island tram.

Cast

Source:^[3]

• Ronald Bronstein as Lenny Sokol
• Sage Ranaldo as Sage
• Frey Ranaldo as Frey Ranaldo
• Eleonore Hendricks as Leni
• Leah Singer as Paige
• Abel Ferrara as Mugger
• Lee Ranaldo in a cameo appearance

Production

The film was produced by Neistat Scott and Associates^[4] and the production was through the New York City based film collective Red Bucket Films,^[5] of which the Safdie brothers are founding members. Sage and Frey Ranaldo are sons of Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo, who has a cameo appearance,^[3] and Leah Singer, who plays protagonist Lenny's ex-wife. The theater at which Lenny works is a combination of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater (interiors) and the Cinema Village (exterior).^[3]

The film’s dialogue was almost completely improvised, with only an outline written for most scenes.

Awards

Daddy Longlegs won the Fipresci (International Federation of Film Critics) Award at the 20th Annual Ljubljana International Film Festival. Ronald Bronstein won the Gotham Award in the category of Best Breakthrough Actor for his performance.^[6] The film took home the John Cassavetes Award at the 2011 Independent Spirit Awards ^[7]

References

External links

• Daddy Longlegs at IFC Films
• Daddy Longlegs at AllMovie
• Daddy Longlegs at Box Office Mojo
• Go Get Some Rosemary on IMDb
• Go Get Some Rosemary at Metacritic
• Daddy Longlegs at Rotten Tomatoes