No, not the Fred Astaire musical of the same name, nor the Mary Pickford silent melodrama. This Daddy Longlegs is a grimy, muddled, and pretentious indie drama, written and directed by Benny and Josh Safdie, about a Brooklyn hipster father who has custody of his kids two weeks a year and makes the most of it. How? By sending his two sons, ages six and seven, unattended into the streets of New York on errands for him, drugging them (inducing a coma that lasts for days) so they'll sleep while he's hanging out with his Brooklyn hipster friends, and ultimately kidnapping them. And we, the audience, are supposed to find this guy endearing because he's "fun". The filmmaking is very "film school", and the plot goes nowhere. Essentially an untidy, John Cassavetes-style character study. With fugly actors, bad lighting, out-of-focus photography, and crappy sound (use a fucking mic muff!). I don't know why this is even called "Daddy Longlegs", the guy who plays the father is short! Lends credence to my belief that some people should be forcibly subjected to sterilization, then they won't have kids who might grow up and make movies like this.
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