Jay Rohr
The Tao of Steve is an intriguing dissection. It charismatically eviscerates the illusions of a typical romcom manchild even as it seems to support them. As such, this sweet indie film set in Santa Fe is more of a fork in the road than an ultimatum. Romance fiction usually establishes one path to love, but The Tao of Steve accepts that life, especially intimate relationships, are choices that never involve perfection.
The film introduces viewers to Dex, played by Donal Logue (Blade). This easygoing zaftig lothario charms numerous women with an ease envied by other men. Whenever pressed on the secret of his sexual success, Dex professes a personal philosophy known as the Tao of Steve. It’s a set of insights derived from pop culture icons such as Steve McGarrett, Steve Austin, and Stevest of the Steves, Steve McQueen. These notions, however, are soon challenged when Dex encounters Syd (Greer Goodman). Instantly unimpressed by his amorous advances, her disinterest spurs an introspection that this desert Don Juan has long been avoiding.
In many ways The Tao of Steve does follow a certain rom-com formula. Dex is a silver-tongued manchild who only matures once he meets a potential soulmate thoroughly unimpressed by his persona. Romantic comedies often follow some type of incomplete individual motivated to personal growth by an intimate encounter. Whether its emotional or physical is irrelevant as one often leads to the other. Case in point, Ninotchka (1939) is about a dead-inside Soviet diplomat played by Greta Garbo who melts for Melvyn Douglas as a carefree bachelor. It can be seen in Knocked Up (2007), Wedding Crashers (2005), As Good as It Gets (1997), and The Apartment (1960) just to name a few.
Romance as repair, or at least a path to personal evolution, is a common aspect of these lighthearted love stories. According to silver screen logic, finding an intimate partner invariably leads to maturity or some degree of self-improvement. People become the best version of themselves by finding their better half. Perhaps that’s why it’s a recurrent concept in Adam Sandler movies. What The Tao of Steve does with this is cleverly explore why this is necessary.
Films like Playing It Cool (2014) often give main characters broad stroke backstories which seemingly justify their disbelief in commitment. Wounded individuals in chronic emotional agony leap from one sexual encounter to the next like carnal cavaliers. The Tao of Steve puts forward the notion that any arrested development may be intentional.
Dex is depicted throughout the film as being highly intelligent. Several characters even remark on him being the most intellectually impressive individual back in the day. What the movie makes clear is that over time Dex has used his vast philosophical knowledge to craft a persona hiding the real him. In essence, he distracts people with his wit, so they don’t see his various vulnerabilities. For instance, when the audience meets him, he’s gone from an arrogant fellow fueled by infinite potential to a slacker stoner on the road to nowhere.
Granted, the 1990s were the golden era for such individuals. Richard Linklater’s 1990 comedy Slacker easily inspired a subgenre seemingly celebrating the aimless and apathetic. Flicks like Dazed and Confused (1993), Clerks (1994), SubUrbia (1996), and SLC Punk! (1998) soon followed. Still, even celebrations of the slacker produced pictures about their inevitable maturation.
Reality Bites (1994) follows a group fresh out of college discovering their pretentious over analysis of pop culture can’t save them from real world woes. Meanwhile, Wayne’s World (1992) is basically about two slackers finding out capitalism will eat them alive unless they stay true to their basement dwelling lifestyle—the principled life is an unbreakable existence. The various adventures of Bill and Ted lead to utopia. Basically, when the aimless achieve a purposeful existence there is an implication of happily ever after.
Dex is essentially a slacker afraid of growing up, and a degree in philosophy has given him all the ammo necessary to fight off adulthood. Plus, he possesses the intellect to paint his selfish failure to launch as enlightened disconnect. His glib philosophical quips cut down any argument against his lifestyle. For instance, when pressed on being a stoner he quickly retorts, “Hitler did a lot, and don’t we all wish he’d stayed home and got stoned?” But when Syd really confronts him, instead of chuckling at his charming comebacks like others tend to, she forces him to admit he hasn’t seen a reason to desire anything more out of life.
This admission of an existential fear that life is empty leads to his confession that true love is a risk he isn’t willing to take. It would invest meaning in things and he worries his shallow course has made him a hollow person unworthy of anyone’s heart. All of Dex’s cleverness, womanizing, and sarcasm is a veil and shield hiding an ocean of insecurities as well as a fear of risks that might crush him—apathy justified by existential reasoning. In essence, whatever the cause of their arrested development, the various manchildren of romantic comedies are frightened boys hiding from the world, proclaiming through promiscuity they are heroes while never risking their hearts.
A lot of this sentiment is broken down in The Tao of Steve courtesy of Syd’s profession. She designs sets for operas and happens to be in town working on a production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. This provides a pretext for the two to discuss the works of Søren Kierkegaard, such as Either/Or, The Diary of a Seducer, and the philosopher’s failed relationship with Regina Olsen.
Søren Kierkegaard wrote, “The score of Don Giovanni has exercised the influence of a revelation upon my whole life; it has been and remains for me a kind of incarnation of dramatic and musical infallibility. I regard it as a work without blemish, of uninterrupted perfection.” He also opined that “the most abstract idea conceivable is the sensuous in its elemental originality” and that it could only be presented through music. Listening to this opera apparently revealed to Kierkegaard raw human existence.
While Dex tries to be cute and clever about the topic, Syd puts things plainly by saying, “Don Giovanni slept with thousands of women because he was afraid he wouldn’t be loved by one.” Søren Kierkegaard broke off his engagement to Regina Olsen for reasons lost to history, and while some believe he felt unworthy of her due to chronic melancholy; whatever the reason, this choice haunted his philosophical works as well as her life. Perhaps that’s why something in Don Giovanni illuminated a thousand ideas. And it doesn’t hurt that when Kierkegaard and Regina briefly reunite, later in life, their encounter is almost an inspiration for elements of The Tao of Steve.
Soon after the opera exchange, Syd reveals her immunity to Dex’s charms stem from them having had a one-night stand in college. He made it seem like they had something special just to get her in the sack. The fact he doesn’t remember her at all has made his recent flirtations a rat gnawing at an old wound. And not unlike Regina Olsen, she wants answers as to why he treated her the way he did. Typically, romantic comedies only give couples preexisting history in instances that promote animosity or longing. Regret and shame, however, aren’t as common as naked hostility.
Things usually stem more from a cutesy When Harry Met Sally (1989) antagonism. It’s seen again in the likes of Overboard (1987), 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), and Anyone but You (2023). The Tao of Steve does things differently by having this revelation not be the dramatic turning point. The romance between Syd and Dex doesn’t suddenly blossom. Rather, there’s time to see the fanged bitterness that’s festered in her and the regret this revelation inflicts on him. She pumps into him the poison he put in her life.
It’s a sentiment that Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009) attempted to explore without much luck. Despite a superstar cast including Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner, that romcom lacked a quality script heighted by performers with real chemistry. The Tao of Steve is one of those films where it’s hard to imagine another cast doing as well with the material.
Donal Logue has a lengthy career playing a variety of characters, but this film was a breakthrough performance that won an acting award at Sundance. His interactions with Greer Goodman solidify the romantic core of the story. Her own history with the material helped make The Tao of Steve the movie it became.
According to DVD commentary, the idea for the film started as a documentary. Dex is essentially a fictionalized version of writer Duncan North. He developed and lived by the Tao of Steve for a while in his youth. Greer Goodman pushed for the fictionalization suggesting a film would be better than a documentary. She then helped her sister Jenniphr Goodman refine a script alongside North. Having dated the writer helped Greer keep things honest rather than flattering and flesh out Syd, not to mention her performance. The screenplay’s witty banter and unique humor gradually drew the attention necessary to finance as well as cast the movie.
Jenniphr Goodman took the director seat, and while much of the film is shot simply, there’re a lot of effective tricks to maximize moments. In a Zoom chat featuring the cast and crew, courtesy of The Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, editor Sarah Gartner recalled a particular instance. A poker scene where Dex and his buddies expound on the Tao of Steve was meant to include clips of Hawaii 5-0, The Six Million Dollar Man, and The Great Escape (1963). However, difficulties with that material meant having to stick with what had been filmed. Fortunately, Jenniphr Goodman cleverly shoot the scene with the camera in motion orbiting the conversation.
It’s a trick seen in almost every J. J. Abrams movie from Super 8 (2011) to his Star Trek films. This gives energy to an exposition dump. In The Tao of Steve, it allowed audiences to stay with the characters as they playfully recall the pop culture inspirations for their code. There are also plenty of shots that feel like walking in on people catching them candidly.
Not many romcoms get set in the desert. Spring better conveys the vitality and vibrance filmmakers prefer. Fall works well enough, though it seems reserved for dramatic love affairs that end sadly such as Autumn in New York (2000), Sweet November (2001), or Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl (2015). Much of the charm seen in The Tao of Steve comes from its setting.
There’s a quirky pleasantness to the Santa Fe scenes. It probably helps that many locations were the actual homes of the filmmakers. Dex and his buddies dwell in the screenwriter’s real house. This gives a strange verisimilitude other movie often can’t capture. As film critic Jeff Stark wrote, “The Tao of Steve does what independent films do best: its actors look like real people and the film takes you inside real lives, into real people’s homes.”
Throughout the film, Dex tries to magnanimously mentor Dave played by Kimo Wills (Empire Records). Unable to adopt a Tao of Steve lifestyle, he’s mockingly called a Stu, the utter antithesis of a Steve—all that is uncool. Yet, when that tutelage succeeds, Dex only sees the emptiness of his own life.
The film ends with a degree of ambiguity. Dex realizes he can’t live life fully without taking a risk, so he does with no guarantee of success. His appropriation of eastern philosophy has always encouraged a distance from potential suffering, but Syd helps remind him that “suffering is the climate in which [humanity’s] soul begins to breathe.” Unlike Rob in High Fidelity (2000), who settles for a life without epic romantic fantasies, Dex discovers the magic of the mundane. Existence itself is a wondrous adventure if one takes the risks.
