Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver follows a validation-starved, approval-seeking man who mistakes attention for meaning. Travis is lonely and alienated, socially inept and awkward, yet constantly self-mythologising and self-dramatising. He narrates himself like someone important while real life keeps reminding him how small he is. His politics feel performative, his morals come across as self-righteous, and the more desperate he gets, the more obsessive and fixated he becomes. In the end, he stumbles into the image of a “hero” not because he has changed, but because the situation allows his worst impulses to be repackaged as something admirable. Some people watch Travis and think he’s “deep” because they see themselves in him. They don’t realise the film is constantly cutting him down. The camera pulls away during the phone call, it shows his awkward silences and childish tantrums. The film isn’t admiring his inner life, it’s exposing how he turns misery into a story where he’s the misunderstood main character.