Cyrus Reviews

Honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a decent cast, I thought I should give it a try. To start with, the whole story was actually not really original and fairly predictable. I can imagine that it could have turned out to be some gross-out comedy with a war between this boy and his step-father. Fortunately, it was much more subtle than that thanks to some very impressive acting and some nice sober directing, even though the constant zooming in-and-out was rather distracting. Indeed, it is always a blessing when John C. Reilly plays the lead and, once again, he completely nailed it. It is so refreshing to see an average looking guy like him showing such a wide range of emotions. In this movie, he was always convincing and spellbinding to watch. Jonah Hill was also pretty good, even though his job was more thankless. Ultimately, the whole thing still remained a little too much predictable to become truely remarkable and, with only 90 minutes, they didn't really have the time to further develop the whole situation. Still, for a drama-comedy, it was still pretty solid, I really cared for those characters so it is a pretty good flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Strengths: Superb acting all around, believable and non-stereotypical characters, believable situations, engaging story, satisfying ending

Weaknesses: Often shoddy camera work, stylistic choice of playing dialogue over scenes where the characters aren't actually saying their respective lines

Verdict: Worth watching for the acting and the story, which I felt outshined the weaknesses I listed above even though said weaknesses did break the spell of the film at times.

Cyrus is a perfect example of a lot of talent with too little to do. There just wasn't enough going on in this film to keep the story moving and audiences interested. And as a big fan of the Duplass brothers' work, it really is a shame. Despite the comedy sprinkled throughout the script, Cyrus is a very serious film about a 23 year old kid without a father who is overly attatched to and protective of his mother. What makes the material darker is a smartly written subtext involving emotional manipulation and unhealthy control issues projected from Cyrus (Hill in a suprisingly delicate and solid performance) onto mom (Tomei). Truly this is their story at heart while the struggling divorcee (Reilly) haplessly wanders into their lives with noble intention and unfortunate outcome. Interesting is the issue raised about just how much is asked of women today, particularilly mothers, and even more-so with single mothers of socially maladjusted children. Tomei is brilliant in her portrayal of a middle-age woman trying earnestly and against all odds to satisfy her responsibilities to her son, her desires for herself, and the possibilities introduced by a new, promising, and essentially healthy relationship. Reilly is strong as well, playing everything from lonely and desperate to cautiously smitten to heartbrokenly defeated, to blissfully hopeful-- all convincingly. Keener receives less screen-time but as always turns in a stunning performance. (This whole acting thing just seems so easy for her.) Why then didnt this film get more mileage out of all this talent? Dubious production value aside, the film suffers most in its inability to capture and sustain any kind of energy, dramatic or comedic, striking one tone very well, but others not at all. Cyrus ultimately plays much like a very adept pianist using only 8 of 88 keys.

Before I get into the merits and weaknesses of CYRUS (and thankfully, there are more of the former than of the latter), I'd like to say a few things about the cinematic trajectory of directors Jay and Mark Duplass. For those who see the word "mumblecore" in the critical consensus for CYRUS and don't know what it means, it'll probably be easier to understand what it means if you see the Duplass brothers' first two feature-length films, THE PUFFY CHAIR (2006) and BAGHEAD (2008). Essentially, a movie that follows the mumblecore approach is one in which the dialogue is largely improvised (see last year's HUMPDAY, which actually starred one of the Duplass brothers). I have to say that I didn't get the impression that there was improvisation in CYRUS: it felt like there was a script, and that the actors were following it. That wasn't the case with the brothers' first two films, which I'll talk about now.

THE PUFFY CHAIR is unlikely to have been seen by many people, and that is a real shame because it is a truly fantastic piece of indie filmmaking, perhaps the best movie of the so-called mumblecore movement. The dialogue is improvised, but it is incredibly insightful and well thought-out. It's a road trip movie that is incredibly perceptive about relationships and has a handful of humor to boot. And it has an amazing final scene. All that for a low budget and with virtually no script. I don't know whether or not to recommend it, because it may not be your "type" of movie, but if you think that it is, I say put it at the top of your Netflix queue right now. Unfortunately, two years later, the Duplass brothers decided to make a different type of film. BAGHEAD is sort of a horror/comedy, but it's not exactly what we're used to getting when we look forward to a film that mixes those two elements. The movie is actually ably directed... but some of the acting is truly DREADFUL, in particular that of Greta Gerwig, who's performed better in several other movies, including this year's GREENBERG.

With CYRUS, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that Jay and Mark Duplass have returned to drama, which I think is their stronger genre. The bad news is that, despite having a higher budget and much more famous people in its cast, CYRUS isn't nearly as great as THE PUFFY CHAIR. However, it's still great to see that they're finally being able to reach slightly more mainstream audiences, and one suspects that after the success of CYRUS, they may eventually take some of the brilliance we saw in their very first film and pour it into their next project.

John (John C. Reilly) and Jamie (Catherine Keener) got divorced several years ago. One of the things that I immediately appreciated during the first few seconds of CYRUS is that Jamie is portrayed as an ex-wife who still sort of looks after her former spouse and even tries hard to see if he can meet another woman, and Jamie does all of this even though she's already engaged to marry her current boyfriend. In fact, she has sort of become John's confidante; any time he has a problem, he usually goes to her. It's an unusual departure from the stereotypical character of the ex-wife, who's usually on-screen to nag or argue.

Jamie is so helpful that she invites John to a party so that he can meet people. The fact that John is an awkward fellow who has trouble making conversation becomes quickly evident, and there are some delightfully awkward, cringe-inducing moments during John's interactions with people at the party. It all gets even better, though, when John sneaks over to pee on a plant, thinking that no one is seeing him. Enter Molly (Marisa Tomei), whose first line is uproariously funny, and the same can basically be said from the rest of the conversation. We get the feeling that Molly doesn't care about the fact that John bumbles a little bit in conversation. They seem like a perfect match. They start sleeping together, but something suspicious keeps happening: Molly always leaves in the middle of the night. This prompts John to follow Molly one night to her house, and that's where he discovers our title character, Cyrus (Jonah Hill), who is Molly's 21-year-old son.

The first half of CYRUS teems with masterful dark comedy. There's an expertly executed conversation when all three characters are together for the first time at a dinner table. The line "But you can feel it already" is delivered at the most inopportune moment for the characters, yet it is incredibly opportune for comedic purposes. The reason why the first half of CYRUS is magnificent is because the title character behaves completely amiably towards John, yet there's this constant undercurrent that something is off. A moment in which a character is seen holding a knife in the dark is truly a brilliant touch. There's something clearly unhealthy about Cyrus' relationship with his mother, and all the subtle hints at this are handled greatly by the Duplass brothers.

The reason why CYRUS starts losing points in its second half is that all the subtlety suddenly goes away when Cyrus and John literally declare war on each other. The film stops being about the nuanced conversations and about the indirect hints that the title character may be related to Oedipus and it chooses to announce all of this way too plainly. This is all a matter of personal preference: I like my movies more subtle, simple as that. There's still plenty of hilarity to be found, particularly from the way Cyrus silently mouths "Fuck you" at one point and then from a hand-written message that Cyrus gradually reveals to John.

The entire cast is solid. John C. Reilly is great at acting like a bumbling idiot during the initial scenes, and even better, he never goes over the top once his anger towards Cyrus gets the best of his character. Marisa Tomei's is easily the best performance of the film: she has to balance her attraction to John with her ill-conceived clinginess to her son, and she never hits a false note. When my favorite critic (James Berardinelli) reviewed CYRUS, he noted that he could easily see Jonah Hill playing a serial killer, considering what he did in this film. I had a hard time believing or understanding how it could be possible that Hill could give that impression, since CYRUS seemed like such a light-hearted movie. But now that I've seen it, I completely agree. Some of the moments in which Hill stares deeply, without blinking, are truly eerie. This is different from anything else that Hill has done, and a sign that he could easily continue giving even more nuanced dramatic performances.

Minimalism is something I largely encourage when it comes to films (and it worked absolutely perfectly in THE PUFFY CHAIR), but it gets a little in the way of the last few scenes of CYRUS. The movie doesn't become bad at all in the second half: it just becomes too simple, which is an unexpected departure from all the depth and nuance we had gotten used to from the first half. The film's denouement is what one may call "too easy." A deep dramedy could've given us a little bit more than this. To sum it up more simply, CYRUS is a great movie during the moments in which its title character is still nice to John, while he's still holding in all of his frustration towards the fact that his mother is dating someone. Once Cyrus explodes, things become a little bit more obvious, and the movie continues being GOOD, but nothing more than that.

Cyrus had the incredible potential to be so much more than what it ended up being. With the absolutely fantastic cast that it has assembled and the premise that seemed like fertile ground for awkward and black comedy, Cyrus seemed destined to be an indie darling. Instead it winds up being another addition to the aggravating mumblecore movement. It does make one vast improvement over other mumblecore films: the characters feel like real people and not annoyingly damaged overbearingly quirky movie characters. Look, I’ve known my fair share of Greenberg’s and Margot’s, but these characters and films are so poorly written that it makes me want to inflict self-harm to make it all go away.

Cyrus teeters towards the edge of that precipice, but never fully falls into it. I place that saving grace squarely on the shoulders of the cast. A collection of Academy Award nominees (one of whom is a winner) and John Hill, in a performance of surprisingly intense and disturbed sociopathic tendencies that it makes you wonder if he was just slumming it in Superbad and Knocked Up. When presented with the vaguest of character outlines, the cast makes them feel real by improving and trying their best to make these people feel lived in and complicated.

For that reason alone Marisa Tomei deserves another award of some kind. When presented with what amounts to a stick figure, Tomei forges ahead and creates a portrait of a woman who has no one but her son. She is not dumb, but impossibly naïve about her son. Perhaps she has been fed too much fast-food self-help, you know the kind – it became the de jour thing in the 90s and hasn’t quite gone away since. One too many self-help books might do something like this to you. Look at Rielle Hunter. She can talk about her feelings and emotions with the broadest of therapeutic words, but can’t see that her son has intentionally damaged or destroyed every relationship (or possible relationship) she has ever had. Catherine Keener gives a great turn in a small supporting role as John C. Reilly’s ex-wife who wants him to get on with his life since their divorce was seven years ago. She seems almost too smart for him in many ways, and it’s a testament to her character that she was able to put up with him for that long and still remain good friends.

And John C. Reilly, surely, easily, one of my favorite actors currently working, has officially won back all of my love and admiration after detouring into cringe-inducing comedies well below his talents. He can portray hapless and slightly dumbfounded better than anyone. It’s a solid performance, nothing that he hasn’t done a variation of, or bettered in previous work. But it’s nice to seem him playing a character and not a schtick again.

Cyrus is fairly routine. It came armed with a trailer that screamed hilariously twisted comedy and delivered all of the funny in the trailer. Everything else is painfully awkward, predictable but very well-acted. This cast deserved so much better. I’m still waiting to be impressed by this mumblecore movement.