The provocative subtitle "XX Better" is either marketing genius or a declaration of war. For decades, Taxi Driver has been analyzed as a deeply masculine, even misogynistic text—Travis Bickle’s rage is directed at pimps, "sinners," and a female campaign worker he idealizes. Many critics have noted that the film lacks a true female perspective.
Clémence Audiard has stated in a 2023 interview (prior to the alleged screening) that her favorite genre is the "male meltdown" film, but she finds it "unfinished." She said:
“What happens when a woman reaches the same level of alienation, armed with the same tools of surveillance capitalism and loneliness? She doesn’t become a hero. She becomes something else. And that’s what I want to film.” freeze 23 11 24 clemence audiard taxi driver xx better
Thus, Taxi Driver XX Better would not merely reverse genders but dismantle the romanticization of the lone gunman. The "XX" signifies a double departure: two X chromosomes, and the number 20—perhaps referencing 20 years after 9/11's surveillance state, or 20 years of ride-sharing apps (Uber, Bolt, Free Now) that have transformed cab driving into algorithm-driven labor.
Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone) knows how to film bodies under pressure. But Clemence Audiard (our hypothetical director) would invert his signature brutality. Her Taxi Driver would replace the famous “You talkin’ to me?” mirror scene with a silent, three-minute shot of a woman checking her own reflection—not for rage, but for exhaustion. No gun. Just a cracked phone screen and a rating of 4.2 stars. The provocative subtitle "XX Better" is either marketing
Where Scorsese used slow-motion blood ballets, Clemence would use extended static takes of a car’s interior: the smell of old coffee, a child’s car seat in the back, a pepper spray keychain. Violence becomes internal. The only “Better” is the refusal to glamorize the breakdown.
The note reads: Freeze. 23/11/24. Clemence Audiard. Taxi Driver. XX better. “What happens when a woman reaches the same
At first glance, it looks like a detective’s evidence board or a director’s shot list. But these fragments, when thawed, reveal a fascinating tension in modern cinema: the collision of Martin Scorsese’s 1976 masculine nightmare with a 21st-century female response. The date—23/11/24—is the near future, a deadline for a reckoning. And the name Clemence Audiard (likely a misspelling of the French director Jacques Audiard, or perhaps a fictional female counterpart) sits at the center, tasked with answering one question: Can a woman make a better Taxi Driver?