The journey will reveal the joys, sorrows, anger and joy of the (nocturnal) quotidian of five very different drivers in five northern-hemisphere cities, all in a single night.
The globe first settles on Los Angeles, where in the first vignette, Our Winona plays Corky, a chain-smoking, street-smart young woman who is dropping off some musicians at LAX. Her first fare is a casting agent (Victoria Snelling, played by Gena Rowlands), who is barely thinking about catching a cab as she walks from baggage claim, her status as a Very Important Person reinforced by her devotion to her phone. As she steps outside, she barely notices the cab, or Corky, who is using a vintage payphone to argue with her manager, and barely notices her customer.
At first, the class divide between the two is vast, neither one really understanding much of what the other says. But during the long ide to Beverly Hills, we know when a small connection is made. Each woman finds a cigarette -- in an envelope and in an elegant case, respectively -- and as the casting agent looks for her lighter, Corky reaches out to her fellow smoker, presaging the importance of cigarettes in most of the remaining stories.
SPOILER ALERT BELOW
Continuing to be absorbed in her phone, Victoria complains that all of the actresses she has been screening are too affected, not authentic enough. Then she realizes that Corky is exactly what she wants, and since she usually gets what she wants, she thinks her problem is solved. For Corky, the aspiration to be a mechanic someday is a dream that she will not let slip away, even when tempted with movie-stardom. Even though we have spoiled the ending of this first act, it is worth watching, to see Noni in a quintessential role that exemplifies her anti-starlet persona.
The film is a bit of a time-zone lesson, as this vignette ends, and a clock on a wall rolls back to its starting time, but forward to the time that would be in New York, then Paris and Rome (same time zone), ending at the same time -- but near dawn -- in Helsinki. Each of these cities is a different character, as is each driver and fare. Complex stories play out in the confines of each cab as it cruises each darkened, nearly empty city.
Writer and director Jim Jarmusch (known to us mainly for his vignette-a-thon Coffee and Cigarettes) tells each story so differently that this really looks like one of those projects in which several writers were each given a prompt and set on their own course. The stories are all facets of the same mind, though, and well worth watching.
Final Verdict: Four Croquet Balls
