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Quint takes a look at the John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei and Jonah Hill dramedy CYRUS! Sundance 2010!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with another Sundance review, this time for a damn good… possibly great… flick called CYRUS directed by the Duplass Brothers (Austin represent!) that stars John C. Reilly as a lonely divorcee that finds love with Marisa Tomei (lucky devil). It’s too perfect, right?
Enter Cyrus (Hill), Tomei’s grown son, who at first glance is overly nice… almost mentally disabled nice and accepting of John C. Reilly into his family unit. But the guy just sometimes stares at Reilly blankly and as the movie continues on you become more and more aware that Cyrus’ smiling face is a façade.
Now this isn’t an overly dark movie. I know the above makes it sound like FATAL ATTRACTION or something… and there is a slight element of that, but the Duplass Brothers really go out of their way to sidestep any usual formula. The movie is funny, but it’s not THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN. The movie has a central romance that is touching and sweet, but it’s not SIDEWAYS.
John C. Reilly creates an instantly likable character, so lonely, awkward and desperate for love that he comes across a little bit like a puppy. In fact, his performance here reminds me a bit of his work in BOOGIE NIGHTS. He’s not as dumb as Reed Rothchild, but he has that same kind of innocent naivete that you instantly pull for the guy. Reilly really plays the role for all its worth.
And I don’t know what secret deal Marisa Tomei made with the devil, but I swear the older she gets the more beautiful she becomes. Her character, Molly, is just as sweet and vulnerable as you’d hope for in any romantic comedy, but there’s an added layer of weirdness in her closeness to her son.
She treats him like he’s 5 years old. It’s not really an Oedpal thing (maybe a little from Hill’s perspective, but we’ll get to that in a second), but there are mouth-kisses, bathroom sharing as Tomei is showering and other things that might be perfectly acceptable for a mom and her 5 year old, but shock both Reilly and the audience when they happen with Tomei and her 20 something son.
Jonah Hill has a lot to do in this movie, playing a character that is a bit of a step above the others he’s played. He’s not Apatow movie Jonah Hill here, although his comedic timing is distinctly his own. Cyrus is a bit creepy, a bit manchild, a bit sincere, a bit desperate, a tad bit honest and maybe more than a bit crazy.
Cyrus genuinely loves his mom and the close relationship they have, but he might be crossing the line a bit when his actions to push Reilly away expose a kind of deeper issue. He even has a line at one point where he tells his mom he wants her to be happy and that “John can love you in ways that I can’t.” The audience reacted to that with a kind of “what did he just say?” laugh because Hill’s delivery made that sound sad, like Cyrus wishes he could just be his mom’s boyfriend.
Catherine Keener has a small part as Reilly’s ex-wife, who he apparently still works with and is good friends with. He uses her as a bounce board for different ideas and frustrations, much the chagrin of her new fiancée. It’s an interesting dynamic… the exes who are now like two teenage girls gossiping and brainstorming together... and it’s always good to see Keener in a movie.
The Duplasses shoot the movie in a very indie style, constantly zooming in and out within a take, which got on my nerves a little at the beginning of the film, but they calmed down a bit and even used the zoom to sell a few jokes. There’s a look that John C. Reilly gives whenever Jonah Hill walks into the bathroom where his mom is showering that cracked me the fuck up. Reilly’s face doesn’t change for a beat then his eyebrow kind of raises in confusion. At the exact moment the eyebrow goes up the camera rapidly zooms closer to his face, making it feel like the eyebrow motivated the camera move.
I’m very happy this movie works and that Fox Searchlight is releasing it. This will be some people’s favorite movie. It’s not mine, but the more I go over it in my head as I try to pick through the fuzzy Sundance exhaustion for things to talk about in this review the more I like it. I think upon a second viewing, if it holds up, I could graduate my “like it” stance to “love it.”
I’m going to go ahead and post the trailer, but having just watched it for the first time I can’t say it does a good job selling the movie. It shows a lot, but in a weird way that gives away a ton of gags, but doesn’t have half the impact of the funny in the context of the movie.
If you must watch, here it be:
Only 5 more full days of Sundance for me. Today I conducted 9 interviews and still have a few backed up from my first few days. I’ll try my best to get some of those interviews up as I continue to play catch-up on my reviews. As always, follow me on Twitter to get my immediate reactions to the movies I see and the Sundance weirdness that occurs on a daily basis (for instance I haven’t done any parties, but I was outside this one tonight, a CAA party, and a drunk girl came up to me and loudly proclaimed that “they didn’t let in Al Pacino’s daughter!” while pointing to her embarrassed friend… who I guess was Al Pacino’s daughter. Only at Sundance.)
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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zinga
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marisa tomei is like wine
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Untamed Heart, The Wrestler, Cyrus.
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I wish they made a Pro Thunderball movie or at least a Steve Youngblood movie. I know those aren't Walsh-heavy, but still. Im alwasy happy to see a UCB guy in a film, even though usually it seems for no reason.
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my attraction to her... is it still normal or does it start to become ... weird....?
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looked like Marisa Tomei, come on now, who wouldn't?
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...frumpy twenty years ago, but now she's a barely legal 45.
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...I love you! One hot mamma, agreed, she is like a fine red wine, gets more beautiful and sweet with age...
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All they had to do was wait a couple of years and they'd have been able to include a really juicy third act where she gets hooked on coke and sucks off Hollywood producers in order to get roles as "Third Cheerleader" and "Wasted Girl in Cafeteria" in teen movies starring Dakota Fanning.
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Before The Devil Knows You're Dead, The Wrestler, In The Bedroom - the woman is gorgeous and hugely talented. I loved her in My Cousin Vinny but never thought nearly 20 years on she'd be a main reason to see a film.
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In fact, "I WANT TO DIP MY BALLS IN HER!" Sorry, just watched some of The State DVD set last night. Still in my head.
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I finally came around to his pov after "Devil"..
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But I've almost had enough Jonah Hill. I could probably never see another movie with Jonah Hill or Michael Cera again, and I'd be perfectly fine with that. That'd be great, in fact.And I like John C. Rielly, but he always plays such idiots. He needs to go against type at some point. Play someone who knows the score and doesn't come off like a dipshit. He's a talented guy, but his roles mostly strike me as kind of one-note sambas.
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Had been wall to wall Marisa Tomei, it would have been a much better movie. You know it's true. In fact, if instead of Hoffman doing her, it had been a clone of Marisa Tomei, it would have been the perfect movie.
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...after 'cassingle'.
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More amateur than indie. May not watch it just over that and it looks pretty good... Oh well. I hope this trend dies a quick and painful death.
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Kicking ass is so much more than just annhilating another human being... it's a way of life, a rejection of mediocrity, A WILD-EYED PASSIONATE EMBRACING OF FEAR!!!
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The first thing that comes to mind is "Wow, that kid must have wrecked that poor womans vagina."
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Tony and Ridley Scott are getting Producer Credits on this?
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and I needed a bag... to BARF in from the constant zooming, oohhhhh, ZZZIIIING. For real, though, I actually liked that movie but felt it could have picked a fucking genre. I hate that about a lot of indies... it's one reason a lot of the directors can't get beyond indies. Overall, though, I liked it but felt that their 'style' actually ruined parts of the movie for me. And that was at home, I can't imagine seeing that on a big screen.
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You used to get random stuff ranging from "Blair Witch" to "Reservoir Dogs" in terms of (copycat) style, now it seems to ALWAYS be handheld cameras, family dramas, and some combination of John C Reilly, Greg Kinnear, Catherine Keener, Jennifer Jason Lee and Philip Seymore Hoffman. Christ, I never thought I'd miss the flood of Tarantino ripoffs but at least they had guns. Today's indie movies all want to be "The Squid and The Whale" which is way less cool than wanting to be "Pulp Fiction"
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Hard to believe that Jonah Hill could be Marisa Tomei's son but she's 45 and he's 26 so it is possible but Marisa doesn't look like she's 5 years away from 50 though. She still looks like she's in her early to mid-30s.
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And THAT, my friend, is why the distributors have disappeared on the indie circuit.
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