‘Days of Daisy’ is a drama that follows Daisy - a mild mannered librarian desperate to have a child before her biological clock runs out. After leaving her long-term boyfriend and moving back in with her parents, Daisy meets Jack, a professional photographer with whom she shares an instant connection.
Opening on a somewhat comedic doctor’s appointment, Daisy is told that her chances of having a child are at a ‘now or never’ point, meaning that she has to make a major decision with little time. Discussing this with her partner, the film sets up a more dramatic atmosphere, causing the heroine to quickly receive bad news on all fronts.
The film sets out with a fairly striking tone of loss and desperation as Daisy (Jency Griffin Hogan) is faced with a life altering choice to make. In her attempts at trying to figure out what it is that she wants to do, the film tries to put on a more light-hearted and chucklesome affair, yet the clunky dialogue and stiff presentation hinder the film from conferring any moments of levity or adding liveliness to the feature as a whole.
With a slightly constrained delivery, the cast of the film fail to create an amicable atmosphere, detracting from the well-intentioned tone of a romantic comedy, whilst at the same time failing to establish more than 2-dimensional relationships between any of its players. At times, even the slightly antagonistic relationship between Daisy and her mother (Cathie Choppin) plays out as an overblown and unnatural interaction, delivering exaggerated and tiresome exchanges.
With a range of actors playing fairly unvarying personas, the film is limited to a restrained mode of operation in terms of dialogue when Daisy comes across them. Creating a recognisable pattern, the movie drags when certain characters appear on screen, as the audience will already be able to tell which way the conversation will go and how it will conclude.
Perhaps felt most deeply through Daisy and Jack (Bryan Langlitz), the relationship between the two seems both rushed and somehow dragging, with both somehow being right for each other, yet their time together feeling forced and stilted.
With the drama revolving around Daisy’s choice to have children at an advanced age, the film follows her efforts in trying to find a suitable partner to pursue this with. Somewhat muddled however, the story pushes and pulls Daisy along, without giving the character a clear voice. Her proclamation of being unsure of what she wants goes against her attempts at forming new relationships. After parting ways with Jack when he outright states his plans not to have children and Daisy’s later relationship with another man show that she does have a desire for children, making the climactic decision fall flat.
As the film concludes on Daisy and Jack together, having decided not to have children but rather spend their time in pursuit of helping other children, the finale lacks a certain sense of fulfilment. Even though Daisy had struggled with the though of having her own children, the ending feels faux, with a certain absence of contentment towards the final decision from the main character.
Presenting a mix of drama and comedy, yet somehow failing to deliver on either, ‘Days of Daisy’ touches on very sensitive topics of maternity, responsibility and legacy. Through restrained and surface level performances however, the film lacks a certain flare, not managing to find its spark and evoking little response by way of serious thought surrounding the subject matter of the story.
Score: 1/4
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