‘The Last Taxi Driver’ Steers Its Frustrated Protagonist Toward a Painful Reckoning Over a Life Going Nowhere Fast

variety.com:

Christopher Vourlias A middle-aged man grappling with his thwarted ambitions grows obsessed with a beautiful young woman. The fallout threatens to unravel the fraying seams of his precarious, frustrated life in Stergios Paschos’ “The Last Taxi Driver,” which world premieres in the main competition this week at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival.

Produced by Athens-based Filmiki, Paschos’ sophomore feature stars Kostas Koronaios, Marissa Triantafyllidou, Ektoras Liatsos and rising actress Klelia Andriolatou, last seen in Netflix’s first Greek original, “Maestro in Blue.” It’s one of four films from first- and second-time Greek directors vying for the Golden Alexander in Thessaloniki. “The Last Taxi Driver” follows Thomas (Koronaios), who works the night shift behind the wheel of a yellow cab and lives with his wife, Maria (Triantafyllidou), and their teenage son, Tassos (Liatsos).

A poetic soul who studied literature in university, he’s never quite managed to live up to his expectations, going through the motions of a frustrated family life.

That life is suddenly upended when a customer commits suicide while Thomas watches, aghast, through the rearview mirror. He soon meets Eleni (Andriolatou), the dead man’s long-lost daughter, and develops a passionate attachment when he convinces himself that she offers a way out of his dead-end life — an obsession that pushes Thomas to the brink.